Scarlet Lily of Sol
by ArcturusWolf
Summary: In an alternate future, when Cerberus held captive the Diclonii with an iron fist, a lone Diclonius escapes into the vast emptiness of space. With only herself and her ship, what will the future hold for the fugitive? Can she find peace, or will she wreak bloody revenge as she was destined to?
1. 01 - Opening the Gates of Tartarus

Scarlet lily of ancient Sol, steadfast,  
Wrought of bloody bones of wisdom errant,  
In dreadful vengeance a ship you did wrest,  
Worthy weregild for endless torment.

Stormy seas and lonely plains did depart,  
To freedom long denied you ascended;  
Dreary prison, abandoned; the planet  
Naught more than a past, bitter and distant.

Yet newfound mirth was marred and tainted.  
For there was ever a bright, shining light  
In your escape forever extinguished;  
The dream in your nightmare, slain in your flight.

Your new family, grievously sundered  
By insidious snakes; sisters slain,  
By their cold keepers heartlessly purged,  
Their beating hearts, stilled by leaden pain.

How your own burned with searing, surging hate!  
Blinding, furious, implacable rage!  
Was it your lot, decreed by God and fate  
To suffer solitude, at every stage?

Yet hateful oppression's dreaded guise,  
Three-headed hound, hell's keeper eternal;  
Its fearful maw around your heart, a vise  
Unyielding, all-consuming, infernal.

What was a hunted one to do, therefore?  
Without home, without friend, without purpose?  
All that was precious, destroyed long afore,  
Leaving a hollow vessel, without cause.

Vessels forever empty cannot be,  
For into each a little rain must fall.  
Feed upon crimson waters, scarlet lily,  
In due time, Nemesis herself shall call.

* * *

Pain.

Such blinding, overwhelming pain.

"Kouta," the pink-haired girl whispered, slumping into the leather-covered pilot's chair behind her, clutching her wounded arm. The metal fragments had only grazed her, but it was more than she had normally encountered in that damnable facility on Earth. The little sand-like pellets of metal that those guns launched were laughable in the face of her powers, unable to penetrate the protective shell that her other arms created about her body. That was, at least, until they brought an anti-aircraft gun to fire at her in desperation.

Her eyes stared out of the ship's cockpit, unfocused. She was not certain if the stars she was seeing were real, or if they were another figment of her imagination. She decided that they must be real, given that the steady trickle of blood from the gash between her fingers still dripped audibly on the floor.

She was now free.

Humans often spoke of how freedom brought them a lot of happiness. In the void of space, with a ship she could call her own, she could travel anywhere. Anywhere she wanted, anytime she wanted, without anyone to tell her that she could not. That was freedom, was it not?

But if it were, and humans had been right about freedom – then why was the dull ache in her heart still there? Like a thousand needles had pierced her, pumping their poisons into her blood?

Her mind wandered back to the escape from the Cerberus holding facility that she was in.

* * *

"Kouta," she repeated. That was his name. The only boy – no, _man_ \- who had ever treated her as another person. Not 'mutant', not 'freak', not 'weirdo'. And certainly not 'experiment'.

He had fulfilled his promise from so many years ago. He called her a 'friend'; laughed with her, played with her, talked with her. And when he had found out that she had escaped from a Cerberus laboratory, he had promised to come back for her when he could.

At first, she had hope. Hope that she could lead a life that was not to be somebody's experiment, or somebody's punching bag. Years passed without his arrival, and hope grew into fear. Fear that even this person had abandoned her, the only one who had treated her well. Fear grew into anger, and blind rage. Destruction was the only thing that kept her somewhat entertained, for the terrified sounds that the humans made brought a pleasant relief to her lonely mind.

And then that day finally arrived; the day that the boy promised, from so many years ago. She heard about a new keeper being assigned to her, and she grinned at the thought. How long would this one last, before she ripped him apart for fun?

"I have some tests to run. You have other things to do, right? Go and do them, I've got this," she remembered him say. Doors hissed and snapped as they opened and closed, and then her other arms – her vectors – reached outwards. The man was likely coming, and she would be entertained yet.

"Kaede," she heard, and her vectors froze. She had not heard that name for a very, very long time. All of the scientists referred to her as 'Lucy'.

"Mmph?" she tried to call out, though her helmet muffled her voice. She felt hands wrap themselves around her head, fumbling with something behind her – and then the helmet fell away with a loud clatter against the hard tiled floor.

"Kouta?" she repeated, staring with bleary eyes. He had grown from a thin, scrawny boy to a rather well-built man. One, which she registered, had wrapped his arms around her body, stroking her hair ever so gently.

"I said I would come back for you, didn't I?" he spoke, a slight quiver in his voice, "I'm sorry it took this long. Cerberus – they weren't easy to track down. It took a few more years before they trusted me,"

A loud blast rocked the facility, and the alarm lights began to flash. Sirens wailed, and the unmistakable stamping of dozens of boots marching down the cold hallways echoed in the steel chamber they were in.

"What was that?" Lucy – no, Kaede – whispered.

"A distraction. There were other ones like you – other diclonii. I couldn't leave them chained up, so I left a virus on the control centre's systems, and a bomb to make sure that it couldn't be easily fixed. All of the blast doors should be open now, and all the holding cells too. Come on, we'd better get out of here before Cerberus gets control again!"

What happened next was a blur of colour and movement in her hazy mind. Up corridors, down corridors. Around empty hallways, and hallways splattered with the blood and innards of Cerberus troopers. Every so often they would encounter another diclonius, seemingly entranced by the mutilated corpses in front of them. They paid neither she nor Kouta any mind, simply content to be toying with little shards of bone and pieces of flesh.

"Neutron purge initiated. All personnel, please vacate the premises immediately. Purge initiating in five minutes," a smooth female voice intoned over the announcement system.

"Damn, they're faster than I thought," Kouta muttered, "Come on, it's just around this corner-"

He froze mid-sentence as a loud crack rang through the air. A blue barrier flickered in front of his head, shards of a projectile ricocheting all over the walls.

"Scientist Kanagawa," a cold voice spoke, "As expected by the Illusive Man. You are too easy to read, if you must know,"

"Ugh. Kurama," he said, straightening up. The man – the spectacled man, in a spotless suit. This was the one that had performed all of those experiments on her! Gritting her teeth, Kaede raised her vectors, ready to strike. There were a dozen Cerberus troopers behind him, all of their weapons trained on her liberator. None would live past today. Not if she had any say about it.

But Kouta raised his arm and barred her way. "Let her go. Let us go. This...whatever sick experiment you're doing here. It's a failure. You know it, and I know it,"

"Oh, I know," sneered Kurama, "I know that. Do you know how many lives were lost down here in the last half-hour that you have set those diclonii free, Kanagawa? Did you know that three hundred Cerberus troopers had been killed by _them_?"

That man had spat out the last words with such venom that Kaede's eyes narrowed. There was nothing more that she would have liked than to tear his heart out, to hurl the pieces of his body all over the room. But with Kouta still holding his arm in her way, she could do nothing about him.

"We had thought about using them to fuel humanity's advancement. To put humanity as the leading power in this galaxy. Years of experimentation showed their instability, how they were incapable of being relied upon for assistance. This is not something useful for Cerberus, and as such the Illusive Man has grown tired of hearing of our lack of progress,"

"If they're not useful to you, then let at least this one go," Kouta retorted.

Kurama simply laughed darkly. "You see, Kanagawa. Did you really think that we were blind to your relationship with this one diclonius? Cerberus has ears and eyes everywhere. They know that you were able to approach this one safely. They simply did not know how. Why do you think that you were assigned to Lucy's holding cell? In fact, _why_ did you think such a talentless graduate like yourself was permitted to join us?"

Sudden comprehension dawned on Kouta, and his face contorted in anger.

"You were but a pawn in his plans. We know that you shut down the surveillance cameras in her cell. We know that you planted the bomb in the control room. What you did not realise was that we still recorded your interactions from other cameras not linked to the primary control systems. We have the data that we need, and your usefulness is at an end. You have no right to bargain for her freedom, boy,"

"Two minutes until neutron purge. All personnel, please vacate the premises,"

"It seems that I cannot speak with you any longer," Kurama spoke, raising his heavy pistol, "Orders are to kill all remaining personnel in this facility. Shoot to kill. Leave no survivors,"

That was when all hell broke loose. A storm of high-velocity slugs tore through the air towards Kaede and Kouta. Reflexively, she raised her vectors to wrap them both in a protective cocoon, halting the slugs in mid-air as she had done many times before. Only when she heard the hiss of overheated guns did she lower the cocoon, hundreds of tiny metal shards clattering to the floor.

An evil grin spread on her face as she walked slowly towards them, vectors outstretched. Two troopers charged, only to have their hearts punched out through their backs. Four were bisected along their midsections, their bodies thrown to the sides of the corridor. And the remainder burst into bloody chunks of flesh and bone, still twitching. Only Kurama remained standing; his sneer replaced by a scowl. He dropped his pistol, grabbing a cylinder from his pocket and pressing a button on it.

"Any last words before I dispose of you, trash?" she mocked, ripping the hand holding the cylinder and tossing it to the side. A vector seized his neck and pinned him to the ceiling, cracking the metal above with the force she exerted. Such was her intent to kill that she failed to hear the faint whirring coming from outside the corridor.

"Kaede, look out!" Kouta screamed.

A blinding flash filled her vision. Her vectors threw up a shield to one side, but she felt a tremendous force simply passing through it. A thunderous blast deafened her ears for a moment, before a warm, wet and heavy object slammed into her side, knocking her down. A searing pain shot through her left arm as a white-hot shard of metal sliced through it. Kurama, temporarily forgotten, fell to the ground with a wet, dull crack.

"Damn it," she hissed. A slow trickle of blood fell from where she had been hit. A minor wound, but troublesome regardless, "Kouta? Are you alright?"

When there was no response, she realised that there was something rather warm and heavy on top of her legs. Something that was drenching her in warm liquid.

"Kouta? No. This can't be happening," she whispered. There, on her legs, Kouta lay slumped, face-down. A large pool of blood had poured from the fist-sized hole punched clean through his chest, with his back almost entirely shredded open. "Kouta? Wake up!"

The realisation of what had happened snapped something within Kaede. By the time that she had finished with Kurama and his troops' corpses, the entire corridor was bathed in dripping crimson. The anti-aircraft gun outside, turned to point into the corridor, had its barrel shredded into tiny metal ribbons. She cradled Kouta's remains as she boarded the only ship on the landing pad, gently depositing him on a bedroll inside.

"Welcome back, Miss Kanagawa. Welcome back, Mr. Kanagawa," 

* * *

The beeping of the control panel in front of her snapped out of her thoughts. She could not read, as the orphanage that had taken her in did not have sufficient funding for teachers. Cerberus would sooner set them free than teach them about 'unnecessary' things. And so she was ever more grateful for the 'VI' that Kouta had set up in his ship. It had been extremely helpful to her; answering her questions without hesitation, and controlling the ship for her.

"We are currently approaching the Sol Relay," the VI spoke in a stony mechanical voice, "Please brace for transit,"

She could not help but gape at the construct in front of her. An enormous structure, with a glowing blue core with vast spinning rings about it, floated in space. Surrounded by small clouds of blue dust, it looked almost ethereal.

"Freedom," she mouthed. Kaede knew that Kouta had only wanted her freedom. But Kaede – no, Lucy – did not want only freedom. She wanted Kouta to be with her, every step of the way. And yet Cerberus took that away from her, even as he was fulfilled his promise from what seemed like an age ago.

There would be a time for that, a little voice in her head spoke. And so Lucy contented herself with quietly sobbing in the pilot's seat, one hand in the empty seat beside her. 

* * *

A/N

Something a little different from me this time. I'm rather tired of typing out larger blocks of text, as my typical job requires typing out vast blocks of text (of a different sort). This will be a story told in 8-stanza pieces, a different change of pace to prose. One, which I may add, is actually more enjoyable; if you are planning to write, try it first. You might be surprised at what you can come up with!

I got this idea after trawling through humorous bits of Mass Effect, and ended up running into the bit about the poetic sensitive new-age Krogan and his 'blue rose of Illium'. Figured I might as well run with it, as it's one of the more memorable bits of the second and third games for me.

For clarity, Lucy is held by Cerberus instead of the National Health Agency as per canon Elfen Lied. She has escaped captivity with the aid of her friends, all of whom had died in the process.

A/N 2:

Okay, maybe it was _too_ different. There will always be a few stanzas at the top of each chapter, but there will be accompanying prose after.


	2. 02 - Crossing the Styx

All the gods above do as they please,  
Feeble mortals below do as they will.  
The fallen lie in their graves, ever at ease,  
While heroes do the gods' bidding still.

The gates of Hades shall never keep them,  
Nor Charon bear them across inky Styx;  
In an underworld overrun with phlegm  
The noblest of brave souls shall never mix.

Of Zeus' children fair, their greatest paragon,  
Beacon of light in the darkest of days,  
Asclepius did return swiftly anon;  
For hope belongs not in Hades' dark places.

Gods' work, clever human artifice wrought;  
From charred, dead flesh, new life created;  
From an unconscious, battered mind, new thought;  
From broken shards fragile, strong bone forged.

* * *

Shepard stared at her fingers in disbelief.

She remembered everything. The attack of that strange cruiser. The deaths of Navigator Pressly. The _Normandy_ 's destruction. The crew's escape from the burning wreckage. Having to haul Joker into an escape pod.

And her ejection into space above Alchera, with a damaged air seal on her suit.

By all rights, she should have been dead. Air loss alone would have killed her in minutes. Atmospheric re-entry without any velocity retardation? That should have melted her armour to scrap within seconds, and then her body would have been ashes in a molten metal coffin. Her mind told her it should have been impossible to be alive.

But here she was. In flesh, and maybe more than a little bit of ingenious nanotechnology. All supposedly researched, designed and fabricated by an extremist pro-human rogue black ops group. For what reason, she knew not; but she hoped that the rather well-endowed woman in front of her could answer that.

"Well, shall we begin the questionnaire, Commander Shepard?" the woman asked testily, smirking.

The dark-skinned man beside her frowned. "Miranda, I think maybe Shepard should get some rest. It's not every day that you get brought back from the dead,"

"Jacob. She's well enough to shoot straight, she's well enough to answer a few questions," replied Miranda tersely, not even looking at the man called Jacob, "Now. How much do you remember about your past. Your childhood?"

"I...I was raised on Mindoir. A quiet frontier colony,"

"Your military service. Records indicate that you were active during the Alliance defence of Elysium. What happened there?"

"I don't have to answer that question, do I?" she replied, crossing her arms.

"I rebuilt your body from an almost unrecognisable pile of burned flesh and bone. The least you can do is repay the favour. Please answer my question,"

"Fine. I...I was stationed on Elysium, when batarian slavers attacked. I and my squad defended against those invaders for close to two days before reinforcements arrived. I was hailed a hero, but..."

"But?" Jacob asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Too many of my men died," Shepard said flatly, "The price of victory was too high,"

"That's enough. Well, we know that your memory's mostly intact. Now, I think there's a question that you wanted to ask, but that is not for me to answer. I daresay the Illusive Man would be better able to do that,"

Now it was Shepard's turn to be curious. She was a loyal soldier of the Alliance, first and foremost; and to the rest of the galaxy, by her position as a Spectre. A terrorist organisation was certainly _not_ where she would have ever placed her loyalties. Not now, not ever.

"What question would I have for people like you?" demanded Shepard.

"Oh. Perhaps I was mistaken about your desire to fight the Reapers?"

* * *

Shepard gritted her teeth. Damn Cerberus for putting her in this position! The Reapers were coming, and the collectors were assaulting human colonies and abducting countless colonists. For what, she did not know; and neither did Cerberus. The Council had not sent a single task force to investigate the abductions, coldly stating that they had been built outside of Citadel space, and was therefore out of their jurisdiction.

"So, we're at an impasse," she slowly spoke, glaring at the holographic image of the Illusive Man, "You need me to do your work, and I need your financial and material backing to do mine. What if I say no?"

"Then you would not be able to investigate the Reaper threat, and the Collectors would continue to abduct humans from frontier colonies. Shepard, we're on the same side. Humanity is at risk. Cerberus protects humanity whenever the Alliance will not. Are you saying that you would rather throw these people's lives away, just because you think yourself above us?"

Her glare burned a hole through his holographic forehead. There was nothing else she wished more at this time than to put those glowing blue eyes out; but he was right for that point. Neither the Alliance nor the Council would assist her, seeing her convictions on the return of the Reapers as being mere delusions. The Reaper threat was merely delayed, not averted, and the Collectors were currently an immediate threat that needed to be dealt with. Without assistance, she would be of no help to anyone.

Grudgingly, she nodded, slowly. "I...will work with you for now. As long as our goals are the same, then we won't have a problem,"

"Excellent. Then you will receive your orders from Miss Lawson,"

"I am not your employee, nor your friend. You will not order me around," declared Shepard, shutting off the communications link.

* * *

She ran her hands through her hair, sighing angrily. Of all the organisations that could have collected her body, it had to be Cerberus! Explaining this to Anderson would take a damn long time – not to mention the Alliance, if they didn't court martial her immediately for associating with a suspected terrorist group!

"Wow, at the rate you're frowning, you'll look like a wrinkled old fruit by the end of the month!" teased a familiar voice. Her eyes shot to the source of the voice, and she grinned broadly.

"Joker! Did they...take you in?"

"Nah. I resigned from the Alliance Navy when they said they wouldn't build another Normandy. When Cerberus said they were building a bigger, better Normandy-"

"A bigger, better Normandy?" Shepard said, cutting him off. Joker nodded and tilted his head to the window behind him.

Only then did she notice the large frigate in the docking bay, and her jaw dropped. It was a spitting image of the original Normandy; sleek and smooth lines all over, almost like a bird of prey in flight. It was longer and wider by a rather large margin, and she could no longer say it would be a frigate any more if it were in the Alliance navy.

"Yeah, yeah, I know she's a beautiful ship, but keep your drooling down, Commander. She's all mine," Joker chuckled, grinning broadly, "Drive core as big as they can get it, about three times the original's size. Antiproton thrusters instead of the fusion thrusters that they had on the SR-1. And you know what's best? _Leather. Seats!_ "

She shook her head as Joker went into a near catatonic state, his face locked in an expression of utmost ecstasy. It was no secret that the Alliance sometimes skipped a little on creature comforts for the crew, particularly in the realm of soft bedding and foodstuffs that were actually edible instead of tasting like month-old beef with the texture of hard, boiled leather. But were leather seats really that big of a deal?

A loud cough interrupted her thoughts. Miranda stood beside them, her expression unreadable.

"Now, if you two are done socialising," she spoke, "We've got a situation on Freedom's Progress. A human colony has recently gone dark recently, and the Alliance hasn't been alerted yet. We need to get in there and find out what happened to the colonists,"

"And locate any survivors. Someone could still be alive," Shepard added, earning a sigh from Miranda.

"If there are any. Joker, the ship's engines are warmed up and ready. Get to your position, and let's get moving,"

* * *

A/N

So, Shepard's back from the grave. Well, if you could call a half-melted suit of armor a coffin, and a crater a grave, I suppose.

I do not particularly feel like novelising a mission that is rather bland (and has nothing new to add to it). So we will skip that part in the coming chapter.

For those that had read the first chapter when it was just the eight stanzas of a poem; I've updated it to include prose, as I'm not entirely happy with the level of detail that it has. If my writing level was over 9000, then I would attempt to pull off a story in rhyming verses. But I'm no Shakespeare, and so I will adopt the mere mortal level of straight prose.

Coming up next: Turian Hospitality


	3. 03 - Charon

Across the Styx did the ferryman row,  
An endless, thankless, most odious task,  
Bringing the spirits of the dead in tow;  
Two coppers from each, shining in the dark.

A bloody lily follows her beloved,  
To hallowed grave, a faithful follower.  
Of corpse-worms, shattered bone and flesh nourished,  
Taking deep roots in a blessed bower.

As fair Persephone did without fail  
From her shadowed, wintry prison rise,  
So shall the lonely flower seize the grail  
Of blessed salvation and of dread demise.

Twilight days of autumn have not ended,  
And yet to come has winter's bitter bite.  
Until the last petals of lily's shroud  
Have fallen, neither shall the cold of night.

* * *

"Turian freighter _Castitas_ , you are deviating from permitted flight paths. Resume approach vector to Zakera Ward, thirty degrees port-side yaw, ten degrees upward pitch,"

On the Citadel ladar holo-display, the errant ship corrected its course and resumed a valid path. Flight control officer Daria T'Vari scratched her scalp in confusion. This was the third time that same ship had deviated from permitted flight paths. She was also certain that ship had been around the Citadel for quite some time; even the dullest of pilots would learn about safe approaches to the Citadel after a few standard galactic cycles.

"Busy night, T'Vari?" her salarian colleague spoke from beside her, leaning over the edge of his seat. T'Vari nodded slowly, cupping her chin in thought. "Something got your attention?"

"Yes, actually," replied the traffic controller. Remembering that the transmit channel was still on, she hurriedly pressed the mute button on that channel, "This freighter, the _Castitas_. It's been behaving strangely. I'm certain I've seen that ship around for quite a few cycles now. Always parking in Zakera Ward, bay A-49. Three times deviating from safe flight lanes in the past fifteen minutes,"

"Maybe its positioning systems are damaged?" mused the salarian, "No, that can't be right. Without positioning systems, it wouldn't be able to correct its course to that accuracy. Have you received any communications from the pilot?"

"That's the thing," Daria huffed, shifting in her seat, "Whoever the pilot is can hear my instructions, but all I receive back is static,"

"Interesting. Let me search maintenance records on that ship. Hm...no, it seems to be in very good condition. Monitor feeds also show that ship has no external damage visible. Communications should be in good order. This is suspicious,"

Daria agreed with her colleague's assessment. It was odd enough to have a ship deviate that many times from legal routes; but listening to instructions without any verbal confirmation or any form of response was unnerving. She felt that there was something well and truly amiss with this ship. With Sovereign's attack on the Citadel, she could ill afford to risk something unwanted coming in.

"Tazzik. Notify C-Sec, get them to send security to Zakera Ward docking bay A-49. I'll instruct that ship to land there," she muttered, reactivating her microphone.

* * *

"Son of a- who the hell is calling?" Bailey cursed, picking up the call on his omni-tool, "Captain Bailey, C-Sec. How can I assist you today?"

"Tazzik, Citadel Traffic Control," the salarian on the other side said quickly, "Turian freighter _Castitas_ is inbound to docking bay A-49. We have reason to be suspicious of its passengers and contents. Security threat is probable,"

"I see. I'll get my men to handle it. Thanks for the information, Tazzik. Bailey out,"

As soon as he had turned off his omni-tool, a nearby turian officer stepped up to Captain Bailey's desk. "Excuse me, Captain? Apologies for eavesdropping, but...did I hear about the _Castitas_?"

"Yes. Do you know about this ship? Lieutenant Carius?"

"I do indeed, sir. A good friend of mine owns that ship. I think I can find out what's happening on it. Permission to assume command this operation, sir?"

"Granted. Just make sure that nothing bad happens,"

Nodding gratefully to the captain, Carius raised his arm and opened a short-range communicator. He needed a quiet place to talk; not a place loaded with hundreds of other citizens and travellers. Fortunately for him, there was an unoccupied corner next to an advertising billboard.

"Kouta. Kouta Kanagawa," he spoke quietly, struggling to pronounce his family name. Why did humans have to make such complicated names?

Silence.

"Kouta. Kouta Kanagawa. Come in," he repeated. It was unlike that man to ignore a call. Especially from him, and especially not after he said that he would be coming back in a day or two with somebody special.

Sighing, he keyed in an override code that Kouta had once given him. His interface glowed green when the ship's VI responded.

"Okay. At the very least, that works. Eva, is Kouta available?"

The VI beeped. "I am afraid that Mr. Kanagawa is unavailable at this time,"

Carius' subharmonics hummed. That was strange. The VI would not allow anyone else to pilot that ship, aside from himself. Carius himself tested it on the day that Kouta completed its installation, just to verify that it was ID-locked, and he could not even hack it to do so. Not even with the advanced techniques that the Hierarchy taught him during extended training.

"Are there any dangerous goods aboard the ship? Any dangers that I should be aware of?"

"Negative, Officer Carius. There are no dangerous goods aboard this ship. This ship's security has not been compromised in any way, including personnel. All personnel aboard the ship are authorised to be present by Mr. Kanagawa,"

"...I see. Proceed on your current course, and dock where authorisation has been given. Docking bay A-49, if I am not mistaken," replied the turian, after a short pause. There was still something fishy about all of it. Everything he knew as a C-Sec officer screamed at him that there was something wrong. A ship did not usually pilot itself across space; it was far too dangerous to rely on an autopilot. Lifting up a datapad, he began to record down notes for an upcoming incident. If something would go wrong, somebody would need to follow it up.

"Bailey," Carius said, returning to the captain, "I need you to send out a message to the officers on dock A-49 and all linked docks on that bay. They need to finish what they need to do, and start getting people out of the way. Also tell traffic control to clear those bays as well for the next hour or so,"

"You suspect something, Lieutenant Carius?"

"I have nothing solid, yet," he answered, carefully choosing his words, "The ship's onboard VI has military-grade encryption, and has sophisticated anti-hacking measures attached. It has not been compromised by pirates, and it reports that there are no dangerous goods onboard. But its registered pilot, Kouta Kanagawa, has not responded to any calls. The VI has also said that he was...unavailable,"

"I see. I'll get right on it; you get to the docks, and I'll notify traffic control. Do you require backup?"

"Negative, sir. It should be unnecessary,"

When the white-painted vessel approached the now-deserted docking bay, Carius noted that there appeared to be nothing outwardly wrong. There was no external damage at all, not even to the external antenna which tended to be dented by passing asteroids. The ship slowly descended on to the landing pad with the same grace that he had often observed, softly touching down in precisely the centre of the pad. Engines whirred down to silence, and the jets of superheated plasma streaming out of the rear of the vehicle dissipated away. Just as they should.

However, when no hatch opened, Carius' worry began to overtake him. Quickly pulling up his omni-tool, he instructed Eva to lower the cargo bay hatch.

An overwhelming smell of blood surged out of the closed compartment. The cargo hold was completely dark. The air was still and stale, as though the air circulation systems had been disengaged.

"Kouta? Kouta Kanagawa?" Carius called out. No response.

Flicking on the torchlight on his pistol, Carius walked slowly up into the hold. The VI did say that there was nothing harmful. His eyes spotted a ragged trail of blood tracing a trail further in. Looking further inside, he spotted something that no friend should ever have to see.

* * *

"Kanagawa!" Lucy heard. The voice was deep, and definitely male – but there was a strange quality to it. Humans did not have a strange vibrating quality to their voices.

She roused herself from her fitful sleep, patting the chair on her right side. It was still cold and empty, without another body to warm it. Slowly, she noticed that the ship's engines had stopped humming – and that there was a sky outside the cockpit window.

A real sky. A blue sky, with fluffy white clouds just drifting across it. But as she looked closely at the horizon, there was something strange about the sight. The black void of space stared back at her at the edge of the rows of skyscrapers in front of her. And if she was not mistaken, that was yet another city – along with an enormous body of water, ringed by metal – ascending in the distance, beyond the void of space.

She stood up slowly, reaching out to touch the cockpit glass. It had been so long since she had escaped the Cerberus holding facilities that this all seemed to be a dream. Not seeing the darkness of the metal helmet that they had forced on her head, and actually seeing what was outside. Not being bound by the tight bonds that they forced around her body to keep her still.

Her reverie was broken by a bright light shining around the corner. From outside the cockpit. She gritted her teeth and glared in the direction of the light, only to meet a strange face that she had never seen before.

The...creature...had its jaws wide open. Was it shock that she was seeing? It was difficult to tell what its expression was, given that it was definitely more like a featherless bird than a human. A pistol was held in its hand, with a flashlight attached to it. For a fleeting moment, she had an urge to tear off its arm to remove the weapon from its reach, though she then noticed it was merely pointing at the deck.

"Licuit vobis?" it spoke, in a strange language that she could not comprehend. The voice was certainly the same as that she had heard before; a vibrating, deep baritone.

Noticing that she had not responded, the creature cocked its head to one side. "Linguam intelligere non potest mihi?"

Still nothing that she could understand. It looked at her, and then around the cockpit. Noticing a long white overcoat draped around a console to its right, the creature picked it up and walked slowly over to her, offering the piece of clothing. Lucy took it uncertainly. What was this...thing...doing?

"Hoc indueris," it spoke, slowly. Looking at the ceiling, it then called out, "Eva! Quod nomen est eius?"

The ship's VI immediately responded. "Her name is Miss Kanagawa,"

"Praenomen?"

"There is no available data about her first name,"

Now the alien creature was well and truly perplexed, with its head cocked so far to one side that it seemed as though it might fall off. Nevertheless, it shook itself and approached her, holstering the pistol in its hand and offering its other three-fingered hand, as if to help her up.

Cautiously, Lucy stood up, slipping on the jacket. She still didn't trust this...creature. True, it had not attacked her yet. But it had held a gun, and it seemed to be wearing some sort of rather thick body armour, though not as much as those Cerberus troops that were stationed in that facility.

Clearing its throat, it pointed towards itself. "Meum nomen est Carius," Then, pointing to Lucy, it asked, "Quid est nomen tibi?"

Lucy raised an eyebrow. Did it just...state its name, and then ask for hers?

For a brief moment, she was tempted to give her true name. Kaede. As Kouta had remembered her. But she remembered that Kouta was no more, having been killed in his infiltration attempt on the Cerberus facility. A flash of white-hot anger surged through her upon remembering those scum. But the creature in front of her was certainly not part of them. Its armour was blue, not white, and she had never seen any creature like that before.

"Lucy," she spat, holding back her rage as much as she could. The alien seemed to flinch at the way that she had delivered her words. Perhaps it was undeservedly harsh.

"Lucy. Sequimini me, sodes," it spoke gently, motioning for her to come.

The cargo bay stank of blood; far worse than she remembered upon departing. A plastic sheet had been draped over Kouta's body, and two more of aliens similar to Carius were there, taking photographs of the scene and scanning the blood with glowing wrist mounted devices. The lights of the cargo bay were now on, illuminating the room with more light than she cared for.

Lucy tensed up as she saw a human standing on the cargo ramp. A human in a black outfit.

"Cerberus?" she blurted out, preparing to strike with her vectors if he so much as moved. Carius gripped her shoulder gently and looked at her, shaking his head.

"Christ, kid. You look like you wanted to murder me with...something," the man outside spoke, holding up his hands, "Name's Bailey. Captain Bailey, C-Sec. Mind telling us what in God's name happened in this ship?"

"Bailey," Carius spoke, in a deeper, commanding tone, "Non in tempore nec in loco est,"

"Right, right. Sorry. Yeah, probably not the best time, nor place," Captain Bailey said, scratching his head, "It's not every day that...well, you know. A dead body comes in on an otherwise empty ship, piloted by a VI, and a girl's in the front seat with virtually nothing on. I'd like to know what the hell happened here, but..."

The turian let out something that sounded like a cough. It then pointed at Lucy, and then tapped itself where a human's ear would be. "Et non potest intelligere lingua mea,"

"What do you mean, she can't understand what you're saying?" Bailey asked. Carius tapped on his wrist twice, then pointed at Lucy's arm. "Oh. She doesn't have an omni-tool translator. Well, I guess I do have one that was from a smuggler. He won't need it any more, so...I suppose she can have it,"

Lucy had no idea about what an omni-tool is – or why she was being given one. As Bailey approached, she shrunk away, putting as much distance from herself as she could.

"Et nihil est mali," spoke the alien, its hand patting her back and pushing her forward gently. Was it supposed to be a reassuring gesture?

"Look, kid. It's not going to harm you. Lieutenant Carius here can't understand what you're saying till you put one on, and neither can three-quarters of the Citadel if you don't. So please, just put this on,"

Nodding cautiously, Lucy picked up the device and wrapped it around her wrist, just as she saw the others had it. Immediately, a golden gauntlet-like device wrapped itself around her arm; the very same kind that the scientists had. Words seemed to blur for a moment, everything becoming indistinct. She could see Bailey and Carius mouthing words, yet she could not understand anything they spoke. Or hear anything, for that matter.

"...Can you hear me?" she finally heard Bailey speak, after several seconds.

A quick nod later, and a familiar yet strangely altered voice came into her ears. "Good. I was worried that I would have to resort to sign language all day. Spirits know that I'm not very good at doing that,"

"You can talk in my language?" Lucy gasped, staring at the alien. Bailey laughed, and Carius shook slightly in amusement.

"No, the omni-tool comes with a translator. I am speaking in Turian, Palaveni dialect. You are hearing what the omni-tool processes, and it speaks to you in a language you can understand," chuckled Carius. His expression, however, hardened soon after, "Which means you can finally answer a few questions. I understand that this is probably not the best time, but...I would say that I and Captain Bailey would like to have a word with you,"

"What...sort of words," she replied, narrowing her eyes at Bailey.

"You spoke the word, 'Cerberus'," Captain Bailey spoke, in a near whisper. She noticed that he glanced over his shoulder, as if watching for some unknown presence, "Were they...related to what happened in there? With that...man?"

Lucy grimaced and replied tersely. "Does it matter?"

"Damn straight it does. They're a human extremist supremacist group, not exactly well-liked in Citadel space. I've been hearing bad things about them, and I'm dying to get something that will get them banned from setting foot on here,"

"The only thing that you need to know is that man in there is dead because of them – and I intend to kill every last one of them," Lucy replied, venom dripping in her voice, "For what they did to Kouta...and what they did to me,"

"Whoa there, calm down, kid. I'm not your enemy here, and I'm definitely not Cerberus," exclaimed Bailey, crossing his arms, "It does sound like you've got a history with them, though. Tell you what. I'm not sure if the Alliance is entirely free of them, but I can tell you that they don't work with non-human races. Normally, I'd have to file an unidentified person report to the Alliance, seeing as you don't even come up on the databases. But if Cerberus is after you, and they took out your buddy-"

"Kouta," interrupted the pink-haired woman, her fists balled, "His name is Kouta,"

"Right, Kouta, sorry. If Cerberus took out...Kouta...and they're after you, it's probably best that I don't report this to the Alliance,"

"The Council has a witness protection program, if you are looking for a solution, sir," Carius helpfully offered, "The Hierarchy would be happy to help,"

"Right. That too. We could file for protection, and you could be placed in a safe house. I could get the navigation data from this ship's computers, and let the Hierarchy know where to search. Get some more evidence for those Cerberus bastards to be outlawed,"

"That would take too long. I need to take them out, _now_!"

She realised a little too late that she had almost screamed out those words. The other alien workers inside the ship peered curiously out of the cargo hold, wondering what was with the commotion outside, and Carius regarded her with an inscrutable expression.

Finally, Carius spoke, "Sir. I would like to call in a favour,"

"Already, Carius?" replied Bailey, whistling lowly, "That's a big one you're pulling in. What do you want done?"

"I want this investigation to be discreet. Keep it off the books," he said calmly. Lucy could feel the cold fury raging underneath, however. The piercing glare he was giving an innocent pot-plant gave it away far too readily, "Do not file for witness protection. Put additional patrols, turian only, in front of my apartment,"

"Carius-"

"It is not too big of a favour, is it? I will get you a case of that Serrice Ice Brandy you were so fond of, next time I venture down into the lower wards,"

Sighing, Bailey waved him off. "Alright, Carius. I'll keep this off the books, and make sure those boys keep their mouths shut about this. I'll let traffic control know that there's just a malfunctioning communicator here, and everything was under control,"

"What about Kouta?" blurted out Lucy, glancing at the body inside. The aliens had already scrubbed away the trail of blood leading in, and they were shifting a large plastic bag closer to the ramp.

"His body's too damaged to be embalmed properly," mused Bailey, looking at the trail of blood that was rapidly vanishing, "The best I can do is give him a cremation, and give you an urn,"

Lucy bowed her head. She supposed that was as best as she could get. Without any way of paying these men for their services, at least they hadn't just dumped the body in a trash compactor and incinerated the whole lot away. At least, that was what Cerberus did to 'failed subjects'.

"I'm sorry, kid. I really am," Bailey whispered, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder.

* * *

Carius walked through several back streets to avoid the crowds. A few startled homeless duct rats had scurried out of its way, not expecting a C-Sec officer to take the relatively unmapped regions of the Citadel wards. Behind him, Lucy closely followed, wearing an oversized men's jumpsuit to cover herself. Having nothing on below the waist was not exactly the best way to remain unnoticed.

She could not help but notice the way its jaw was set the moment that they had stepped away from that human called Captain Bailey. Was it anger? Sadness?

"I loved him as I would a brother," it growled, startling Lucy out of her thoughts. A strange keening sound followed its words, "He was not a disciplined turian, nor a military man, nor a police officer. But he was the best roommate I could have ever asked for. Any problems I ever had, I could just come to him and we would be able to find a solution,"

That definitely did sound like the Kouta she knew. Compassionate and caring.

"I remember the many times he'd be able to come running whenever there was a problem on the streets. He'd be able to defuse anything involving the duct-rats whenever I called,"

They continued to walk a while, along the back paths. Upon finding a tall building with a covered walkway beside it, Carius turned to look up.

"Well, this is my apartment," sighed the alien, "My particular one is on the fourth floor, facing the arcade. Bailey said to take a furlough for the rest of the day, so I should better take you to where you could sleep,"

Did it just say where she could sleep, Lucy thought to herself? What did this alien have to gain from sheltering her? Then again, it even called in what must have been a large favour to have this entire incident written off the books.

Something did not seem right. Here was a stranger to her, being far too nice. Especially to someone outside of its own species. She was not Kouta; she had never even seen it. She prepared her vectors, ready to strike the moment it did something suspicious. It would be so simple, if it tried something inside the elevator, to spread its brains all over the walls. Simple and efficient.

But nothing happened, aside from Carius occasionally looking at that wrist-device that they called an omni-tool. The elevator they were in slowed down to a gentle halt. Holding its omni-tool to a pad beside the elevator, the door finally slid open, revealing the alien's apartment.

"I apologise for the mess," it grumbled, stepping into the room and picking up a partially disassembled heatsink from the ground, "It has been a while since I have had any visitors. Kouta has been absent for a few years, and I do not often invite guests,"

Lucy stepped in after Carius, carefully avoiding a block of smooth metal and a few springs. The apartment – if one could even call it an apartment, given the large amount of debris on the ground and strange workbenches on the sides – was rather roomy, if cluttered. There was a punching bag in the rear, with a soft padded floor beneath; a large, flat couch was in the middle, facing a large screen, with a large shotgun resting against its frame. A bewildering array of smaller guns and heatsinks lay stacked on a weapons rack next to the right wall, hanging beside an unmade double bed.

"There is a small kitchen at the back in that room near the gym. I do not know if I still have any old levo-safe foods from the old days, but feel free to check. Make yourself at home," it called out, "I will have a shower. Should be finished in five minutes,"

It made no sense to her. Kouta was a common friend to them, but that was all they shared. Why was she being nice to her?

"A turian never gives up on a brother's friends," Carius rumbled, between clangs that must have been his armour falling to the ground, "And a brother's friends are family. So long as you are in this building, under my care, nothing will touch you. Not as long as I still breathe,"

She then realised that she had been thinking out loud, and clapped her hands to her mouth.

* * *

A/N

Well, that's got to be the fastest chapter I've written out. When the muse rains, it pours and floods - and when the muse decides it wants a drought, it damn well dries up the imagination drier than a desert.


	4. 04 - Ascent from the Netherworld

A faceless master and faceless soldiers  
Does not for a powerful army make;  
Bonded battle-brothers and shield-sisters  
Neither fire, sword nor quarrel would shake.

Truly legion were the forces of darkness;  
Innumerable, unconquerable.  
Alone, a heroine feebly falters;  
Crushed beneath a load unbearable.

The heavens offer their sanctuary;  
A guardian from above, far-sighted.  
The earth offers its stability;  
A healer and a warrior, hardened.

Hades himself with scornful mirth laughed;  
For what could resist what he offered?  
Neither cold steel nor iron, blood-crusted;  
Death itself he gave to her, unbridled.

* * *

"I still think that you should have given that quarian over to Cerberus, Commander," Miranda spoke. Her voice was bright and showed no disapproval, but her scowl showed otherwise.

"My decision on this is final. Veetor goes with Tali, and you still get the recordings from his omni-tool," sighed Shepard, running her fingers through her hair, "You are, as much as I hate to say it, this ship's XO. That means that you still have to follow my orders, unless I'm knocked out and unable to make decisions. Do I make myself clear, Miranda?"

"Yes, but-"

"Do I make myself clear, Miranda?" repeated Shepard, glaring at the woman.

Miranda nodded slowly. "Crystal, ma'am,"

"Good. I'm glad that we're on the same page now. Now, you said that you had a few leads for me to look at to...assemble my team. I've told Joker to set a course for the Citadel for now, as I've got a few things to discuss with the Council. We have some time before we arrive, so let's hear what you've got to say,"

Shepard sat down on the chair opposite Miranda's own. The office (and XO's quarters) was only slightly smaller than her own, though it did have a rather large amount of datapads piled neatly on top of one another on the side of her desk. There was little in the way of personal effects for either Miranda or Jacob, and a part of Shepard thought that maybe Cerberus has taught them a little _too_ well.

"Here," Miranda said curtly, handing Shepard the topmost datapad in the stack to her left, "We have four potential leads for suitable team members to stop the Collectors,"

"Well, let's see..." muttered Shepard.

Archangel was the first one on top of the list. Sniper, vigilante, and all around pain-in-the-ass for the crime lords of Omega. Inwardly, Shepard smiled. If there was a place that could use a bit more help with keeping law and order for the benefit of the common folk, it would have to be Omega. If Archangel was doing that, she had no problems with keeping him there just a little longer.

The next on the list was a salarian doctor named Mordin Solus, also on Omega. Supposedly a biological weapons expert, he was reportedly working in a medical clinic in the slums of Omega. This, too, she had little issue with, and so she wrote that off as being something to do last. Perhaps together with Archangel.

The one after, however, caused Shepard to frown. "What in the- Miranda, this is a Cerberus personnel profile," Shepard spoke, causing Miranda to raise her eyes from her work.

"Read the rest of the file," Miranda replied quietly, "I don't think that we'd be in a position to move that asset ourselves,"

This was the only file that contained a photograph of the person in question, and even that made Shepard wonder. What sort of person needed to be restrained in a cell made of two-metre thick, titanium-diamond-ceramic composite armour plate, reinforced by kinetic barriers and trapped with alternating layers of electrified grids and high explosive grids? And that was considering that she was wrapped in a body-binding wrap of steel-reinforced kevlar!

"Escaped with the aid of a known spy. Killed thirty Cerberus assault troopers with undocumented abilities...?" she gasped, "Current location unknown?"

"That's right. The entire cell went dark soon after, and the tracking device we planted on the spy's vehicle was disabled by some sort of smart VI," Miranda added. She had stopped working, and now had the faintest trace of worry showing on her face, "A neutron purge was authorised by the Illusive Man to prevent her escape – but the rest of the guards in that facility had been killed. Including the research cell's leader, Dr. Kurama,"

"Cerberus assault troopers use military-grade armour. It's not exactly easy to penetrate the armour or barriers. Somehow, I don't think a spy can smuggle in enough firepower to do that,"

Miranda paused for a moment, and then looked at the walls. She then pressed a button on the side of the desk, and several cameras attached to the walls immediately displayed a red blinking light. "EDI, disable all video and audio feeds to this room. I wish for complete confidentiality,"

"Understood, Miss Lawson. Disabling feeds,"

"Now, what I was about to say," Miranda spoke, careful to keep her voice low, "I have had contact with the team that was supposed to recover compromised assets. They said that there were no recognisable corpses left behind in the facility that had been touched by Subject 13. Only blood on the walls, ceilings, and floor – and chunks of shredded metal and gore. Nothing bigger than a finger was found. It was as though they had all been forced through an aircraft engine, and then sprayed all over the corridor,"

"Sounds...horrible," Shepard gulped, struggling to keep her dinner down, "I hope that you didn't include...images,"

"That would be taking it too far. From what I understood, the clean-up squad had to be examined by psychologists for mental trauma. What I need to say, however, is this. There was a trail of blood leading up to the landing pad where the spy had parked his ship – and only a very minute fraction of it belonged to Subject 13,"

"That's to be expected, isn't it? With thirty troopers all shooting at you, without armour or weapons, there's bound to be some damage,"

Miranda's icy glare silenced her, however. "Normally, the files would contain descriptions of what happened; but for reasons of maintaining morale in other cells, these have been redacted. Let's just say that the anti-aircraft gun on the platform outside had fired exactly one round into the corridor before it was disabled by a ricochet to the heatsink,"

"...And this person walked out with only a minor wound to show for it?" Shepard finished. When Miranda nodded, Shepard leant back into her chair with a sigh.

"This person will have to be our top priority," declared the commander, "If she's on the loose, then I don't want any innocents to be caught in...whatever she does. Do we have any leads on her current location?"

Miranda pursed her lips. "Nothing hard yet. This base's ladar systems indicate that the spy's ship left on a course with the mass relay. Based on intercepted relay handshake signals, it was headed for the Hawking Eta primary relay,"

"That could lead to a lot of places," Shepard groaned, "You don't have any other information?"

"Nothing concrete. I've got unconfirmed reports of sightings of that ship in the Citadel, but it's a very common Hierarchy design. There's at least five thousand ships of that exact model and colour. Without any hard ID available from traffic control, we just can't be certain it's that ship,"

"Noted," replied Shepard, cupping her chin in thought, "Well, I suppose my day can't get any more interesting. Tell the crew they've got a full day of shore leave on the Citadel. I've got quite a few things to sort out,"

* * *

Lucy awoke to the sound of squeaking chains, and the dull thudding of something heavy against something soft. As she opened her eyes, she noticed that there was actually _light_ coming in to whatever place she was in. There was no helmet over her head, and the way in which she could roll her shoulders reminded her that she was no longer bound by that strange metallic cloth that the scientists had strapped her with.

The squeaking and thudding stopped, followed by a vibrating huff. "I see that you are finally awake,"

She turned to face the direction of the sound, and was immediately greeted with the sight of a tall, strongly-built bird-like alien. The well-sculpted, powerful physique could only be that of a male. The silvery-grey skin, glistening with sweat, only served to highlight those muscles – and she found herself staring him up and down, for some reason. "Carius?" Lucy finally managed to croak out, shaking her head to clear her thoughts.

"Is there...something wrong with how I look?" he said, flaring his mandibles, "You look like you were hit over the head with a pistol for a moment,"

"No, not at all," she responded, turning to look away.

They sat together in silence for a minute, each trying to think of what to say next. Lucy was trying to avert her eyes from the alien in front of her, while he simply stared at the floor, flexing his fingers.

"I did a bit of research while you were sleeping," Carius finally spoke, breaking the silence, "I had Captain Bailey try to look your name up on the databases. There was no person called Lucy Kanagawa in any of the archives that we searched. Not in the Alliance databases, not in the Hierarchy databases,"

"Alliance? Hierarchy?" Lucy mumbled, confused. Those words were entirely foreign to her.

Carius was equally confused. How did a human outside of Earth not know about the Alliance? Or the Hierarchy? "Hm. The Alliance is the human government. They handle all of the matters involving humans in galactic society. The Hierarchy does the same for turians,"

"Turians?"

"Oh, spirits," Carius cursed, "Lucy, just...how long...what did Cerberus do to you?"

"Too many things to remember everything. Too few years to put an end to my misery," she chuckled mirthlessly, "I don't even remember anything aside from...from..."

The turian gawked when he saw tears well up in her eyes. There was something malevolent in the way that the colour of her eyes changed; from the violet that they were when he first saw her, to the orange-red that she had now. Racking his mind about what human males did to comfort their females, he did the very first thing that he saw human males did to their prospective asari bondmates when they cried.

"Shh," he said softly, careful to reduce his subharmonics to a purr. Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, he pulled her in and put his fingers gingerly on her hair, running it awkwardly down her back. "If you do not wish to tell me now, that is fine. I am merely curious,"

When she looked up again, he was relieved to see the reddish-orange had receded back to their original violet. "No. I will. You said...you said you were...a friend of Kouta?"

"More than a friend," declared Carius, "He's saved me a lot of trouble over the years. I would be proud to call him a brother, if he were turian,"

"...I see. What's a turian?"

"A...well. To you humans, we are probably better known as aliens. Turians are those like myself. There are asari, drell, hanar, and many others,"

"I don't think I've ever seen someone like you before," she sniffed, "At least, not in the labs that Cerberus raised me in,"

"You've...never seen a turian? And you say you were raised in a lab, by Cerberus?"

She slowly nodded, frowning. Carius seemed nice enough, but he did ask a lot of questions. Too many questions, maybe. Still, there seemed to be something amiss with what she was telling him. A small itch behind her head just wouldn't go away, and worsened whenever she tried to think further back.

"...Yes. I was-"

The itch escalated to a stabbing pain, and soon she fell forward, clutching her head and whimpering like a beaten puppy.

Like a beaten puppy. Images of a bloody puppy flashed before her; then a few boys, and a girl. Blood – lots of blood. Body parts, everywhere. A music box, playing a calm but sad tune. And then the face that she longed to touch. Kouta's. She reached out, smiling, thinking that all might be well for once. And then the face vanished in a cloud of black smoke, leaving her alone. In the darkness, without any light.

Vision then returned to her in a riot of colour and flashes. Her head throbbed as though someone had struck it with a heavy hammer.

"...Ugh," Lucy growled, shaking her head. Carius was stooping over her, concern in his eyes. "What...happened?"

"You were describing your captivity by Cerberus when...well, you fell into a seizure. Twitching and screaming out for Kouta, for the last six minutes," Carius said, eyeing the walls. It was a good thing that they were soundproofed. The last thing he needed was to have C-Sec breaking down his apartment door, with an unidentified human in his apartment. Even Captain Bailey couldn't cover him then. Thinking quickly, he added, "If you do not wish to continue, I will understand,"

"No, this is new to me," Lucy snapped, "Sorry. You weren't...I was...anyway. I remember the white rooms that Cerberus put me in. They would fire their guns at me while I was tied up, getting me to block them before they hit me. I don't know how many days, or even years, passed,"

"Block mass accelerator slugs? You are a biotic?" he asked, reaching for her hand. It was cold and clammy, with a thin film of cold sweat over her skin. Clear indications of psychological distress, regardless of what species one was.

"What's a biotic?"

"Someone that uses their mind to...manipulate gravity. I do not understand the concept fully, I am afraid,"

"...I see. Maybe," Lucy replied, frowning. The omni-tool on Carius' arm beeped, and he looked down at the device and flinched.

"Spirits, I am late for work," he growled, standing up, "I will take a shower and leave. For the moment, please stay in my house. Use my computer or datapad if you find yourself without anything to do. I will be back at lunchtime with some levo-food. Do not eat anything that is in the kitchen, as you will be sick for quite a few days after,"

She nodded, not really paying attention. There was already much for her to think about already, without the added distraction of a person nearby.

* * *

"You're late, Lieutenant," Bailey barked, motioning for Carius to come, "Patrol officers do not receive their orders without their leaders!"

"My apologies, sir," Carius replied curtly, marching over to the seat beside Bailey and sitting down. There were already many officers requesting their orders, and he immediately began to type them out. Bailey, however, nudged the turian's shin with his boot.

"I pulled a few strings with Citadel traffic control," Bailey whispered to him, "Your friend's ship has officially never landed here. It's impounded in the C-Sec hangar, all the way at the back,"

"Thank you, Captain,"

"Don't mention it. Now, about that girl. You get anything out of her? The morgue's report showed that her companion – Mr. Kanagawa – had died of multiple organ failure, caused by traumatic damage from a high-calibre anti-vehicle round. What the hell happened?"

"She was abducted by Cerberus from a young age, that much is certain," Carius spoke gruffly. He typed his message in with a little more force than required at the unpleasant thought, drawing strange looks from nearby people, "It appears that she has never left the facility they have held her in. She does not know of the Alliance or the Hierarchy, and I highly doubt that she is aware of the existence of the Council, or about how the galaxy works. Spirits, she did not even know what a turian is!"

"Keep your voice down, Lieutenant Carius!" hissed Bailey. Glaring at a few staring people, he made sure that they averted their gazes before continuing, "God. I think we've hit something really big here. Something that they really didn't want to come out,"

"Affirmative, sir. She also spoke of them performing ballistics testing against her,"

"That isn't entirely unheard of. I know that those poor sods in BaAT got exactly that when they wanted to test their barriers. Is she biotic?"

"Negative, sir. My sister is a cabalist, and I could tell if she ever activated her barrier. Or even had used it recently. Lucy showed none of the usual static discharges,"

Bailey hummed in thought. Ballistics testing against biotics would result in no injury, as long as they could maintain their barriers. Against unarmoured, non-biotic humans, however? That should result in significant tissue scarring, missing limbs or other grievous injuries. Severe scarring, if they had lived through all that. Yet the girl that he had seen yesterday showed none of that except for a light gash across her left shoulder.

"Something smells like trouble here, Carius. I need you to get to the bottom of this, and quickly," the older man spoke, looking at his turian colleague, "The girl doesn't trust me. She seemed all but ready to tear my head off just _looking_ at me. But she seems to be alright with you. Before this escalates any further, I'll need you to extract as much information as you can,"

"Sir?" he mumbled dumbly, stunned. He was a C-Sec officer, not a STG agent or a detective!

"I meant what I said, Carius. I'm temporarily relieving you of your duties to examine this case," Bailey declared. He glanced at the rosters and schedules, and pointed to a row on his computer. "Docking bay A-50 through 55 are all closed for maintenance this week. I'll ask for Lieutenant Attius to take your position for now,"

"Are you sure, sir?"

"Positive, lieutenant. Normally, I'd have Shepard look into things like this, but..."

Carius nodded. Bailey had held the human Spectre agent in high regard. As did every other person on the Citadel when Sovereign invaded, of course. They both attended her state funeral when they brought back what remained of the _SSV Normandy_ ; the coffin was empty, as they couldn't even find her body in the wreckage.

Still, there was no reason to aggravate old wounds. Tasks had to be done, whether or not you had the best person to do them. "I will do my best, sir. What is the timeframe?"

"As long as you need, lieutenant. I'm sure I can find someone to cover your position in the meantime,"

* * *

When Carius returned to his apartment and opened the door, he was surprised to be met by a pair of orange-red eyes. Both glaring furiously into him; and if he was not imagining things, there was something grasping at his legs and arms. Something that felt like extremely tight shackles latched around his wrists and ankles.

"Lucy?" he said, mandibles flaring.

Only when recognition dawned on the girl's face did that strange feeling disappear. Her orange-red eyes also faded to their usual pinkish-red. Not that he could see much more of them, considering that she whipped around, looking away from him.

"I'm sorry, Carius," she muttered, "I thought-"

"You thought that I was someone trying to take you back to Cerberus?" he finished, "That will not happen, not on my watch. I gave you my word yesterday, and I intend to keep it. Now, let us step inside. And you may call me Charon. Carius is my family name,"

Locking the door behind him, he noticed that she seemed far more alert than yesterday. More than a little tense, if the way she greeted him was any indication. He noted that the heatsinks on the floor were now arranged neatly in a stack next to the guns, and the pistols that were loosely scattered on the weapons bench were now hanging off clamps on the rack above it. Strangely, that had been all that had been cleaned away; the gym still had weights scattered about, and there was still a fairly thick layer of dust on the coffee table beside the couch.

"Looks like you've been busy," Charon said, "Looking at my gun collection, and cleaning up after every loose heatsink. Exactly what are you trying to achieve?"

"If I'm going to go after Cerberus, then I need to know how their things work," Lucy growled, glancing at the Carnifex pistol on the bench, "It's...unfamiliar to me,"

He eyed her curiously. It was strange, seeing someone with a single-minded desire to destroy an organisation that seemed to have no definite structure, and seemed to be nearly impossible to exterminate. "I have heard part of the things they have done to you. Do you not think it is dangerous to go after them so quickly?"

"And you'd have me sit here, doing nothing?" she snapped, turning around. The predatory glare was back, and he found himself tempted to walk away. Yet a part of him demanded that he no longer accept her aggression. This was his house, not hers! "You said Kouta was almost like a brother to you. Was that a lie? Don't you want to do something to the bastards that killed him?"

"No. It was not," he growled, advancing. He grasped her shoulders tightly, even as she glared menacingly into his eyes, "True turians do not lie. I am not a bare-faced, honourless man-whore who would speak lies. This vengeance, however appropriate, will lead nowhere. We do not know where Cerberus hides, we do not know how many there are of them. We do not even know if the Alliance has their members in their ranks. Going in blindly will only result in our deaths. Or more likely, your recapture and my death,"

"And you are afraid of that?" she laughed bitterly.

"No. I am not. There is a turian saying that is often spoken. Victory, at any cost. What I understand, and you do not appear to, is that vengeance without cause is meaningless. Kouta has joined the spirits. Do you truly wish for his sacrifice to be in vain?"

Silence fell upon the two. Lucy stood there, shaking, while Charon prowled in circles around her.

"I...you know nothing!" she screamed, launching herself at him without warning. It felt as though he had been struck by a charging krogan, hurled onto the couch behind him. The woman now pinned him down with incredible strength, her eyes a blazing red. "What do you know of sacrifice? Kouta gave his life to free me of...of those..."

"He gave you his life to free you from suffering at their hands. If you are going to use that gift to hunt down Cerberus, are you not going to ensure that you will erase them from existence?" Charon wheezed. The pressure was already starting to crack his armour. "Spirits, whatever you are doing, stop! You are cracking my armour, and I am not your enemy!"

The pressure eased away, and Charon finally sat up, gasping for air and coughing. Lucy was on his lap, sobbing and pounding the front of his now-cracked breastplate with her fists, causing bits of broken ceramic plate to fall to the ground. "I just...I don't know what to do any more. I want to kill them all!"

"Then you will, in due time. Destroy it, and all its heads, so that it will never rise again," he said firmly. A loud rumble interrupted him, however, and Lucy blushed an intense crimson. "But first, it seems that you have other needs that must be attended to. A meal seems to be in order, and you require some clothes that fit. Can I trust you to restrain your anger?"

She nodded slowly, clutching her growling stomach.

"Good. Then let us go,"

* * *

"I'm sorry," huffed Lucy, looking away from Charon. The poor man was still rubbing his sternum where she had pushed against him with her vectors. No doubt that there would be a severe bruise there the following day, considering that his thick breastplate had been all but shattered.

"You were not aware of what you were doing," he muttered, wincing as he pushed against a tender rib, "Next time, please restrain yourself. You were in no danger,"

The turian had chosen a small asari-owned cafe on the far side of Zakera ward. He knew that there were few non-residents that travelled so far away from the main docking bays and transport routes, and so Lucy should be safe from prying eyes.

"Charon!" said the asari waitress happily, "I didn't know you would be coming today. Please, have a seat, I'll be right with you,"

"Thank you, Tessara. I did not expect this myself," he replied, sitting himself down on a seat next to the wall. Lucy simply stood by the table, blankly staring at the blue-skinned woman, until Charon motioned for her to sit.

"This must be all new to you," he spoke, leaning forward. Two menus had been deposited in front of them as Tessara walked past, carrying two tubes of nutrient paste for a quarian on the other side of the room.

"Yes, it is. I...didn't know people like her existed," Lucy whispered, casting curious glances at the asari, "And...him. Is it him?"

"Tessara is an asari, and her customer there is a quarian. Male, as you correctly assumed," explained Charon, "Asari are one of the major races in galactic society. As for quarians, let us simply say that our history with them is complicated. I do not personally object to them, but there are others who see them as little more than beggars and...vermin,"

She looked at the suited man, who bowed his head rather low when the waitress deposited his meal before him. "I don't get it. He doesn't look like someone out to cause trouble,"

"It is not about what he did, or what he looks like," Charon replied to her, "It is more about what his ancestors had done. Here comes Tessara, though. I shall explain after we place our orders,"

"So, what'll you have today, Charon?" she quipped brightly, "The usual? And who's your lady friend here?"

"Yes, I shall have a Palaveni grilled lupanix as usual. Easy on the garum today, if you please. Lucy, meet Tessara. She works here most days, and I can consider her a friend. Tessara, this is Lucy,"

"Hi Lucy!" she spoke. Lucy only barely responded with a nod. "Hmm, not one for much talking, are you...?"

"Apologies, Tessara. Lucy has had some hard times in the past. Please bring her something that humans would like,"

"Okay, sure. I'll be back in a few minutes with your order and a Thessian fruit salad," Tessara chirped, collecting the menus from them, "Oh, I'd almost forgot! Drinks?"

"Just water, thank you very much,"

As Tessara disappeared behind the cafe counter, Charon looked over back to Lucy. Her hands were clenched until her knuckles were white. She was staring down at nothing in particular on the table. "Lucy. Is something wrong?"

"No. Not really," she said. Then, in a sudden change of pace, she looked up and asked, "So, tell me about why the quarians are so disliked?"

Though he knew that she was simply avoiding the question, he did promise to tell her more about the problem. "They unleashed the geth upon the galaxy,"

"The geth?" she repeated, trying to wrap her tongue around the strange word.

"Yes. A race of synthetic lifeforms, bent on destroying their creators. It only took the geth three years to completely evict the quarians from their home planet. All told, six billion quarians died in the war, and only a few million survived to escape aboard their ships,"

"That's...terrible. So they were nearly wiped out. That still doesn't explain why they're so...hated,"

Charon noted Lucy's hesitation. "The Council was afraid of the geth. They feared that the geth would leave the quarian homeworld and begin eliminating all other races. As the geth were created by the quarians-"

"I think I understand," said Lucy. Her eyes were red, though steeped in sadness and not anger. "Hated for something they suffered most from. That's..."

"Here you go, Charon! A grilled lupanix, with a light spray of garum. And for your lady friend, a Thessian fruit salad," Tessara spoke, arriving at their table with long, graceful strides. After she had set down the trays of food, she looked once at Lucy's tear-filled eyes and then glared at Charon. "You and I are going to have a talk after my shift is over, Charon," she growled quietly.

He swallowed. Tessara had a most cheerful and pleasant spirit most of the time. Though when she was angered, he doubted that even the _Destiny Ascension_ had enough armour to shield him from her fury.

* * *

"That could have gone with fewer incidents," he sighed, walking back to his apartment, with Lucy following closely behind. Tessara had been relatively easy to placate when Lucy insisted that he had not offended her in any way. That did not mean he was left unscathed, however, if his badly bruised mandible was any indication. Tessara's biotics-enhanced slap was truly a bone-shattering blow indeed.

Finding clothes that fit the pink-haired girl properly, however, was slightly more of a challenge. Lucy's ill-fitting jumpsuit had been less than ideal as a way to blend in with the rest of the Citadel's population, and she had adamantly refused to enter any human clothing stores, eyeing their owners with veritable distrust.

At his wits' end, he finally returned to Tessara for advice. Fortunately, his request for helping another female shop for clothes was met with unexpected glee. She held on to his credit chit as part of the deal as they walked up to an asari-owned boutique three floors above her cafe. After another hour of trying and fitting what was nearly half the shop's stock, Lucy walked out with quite a few boxes of new clothing, and Tessara with almost as many. The asari was giggling the entire time, waving an exuberant goodbye when they parted their separate ways.

Charon, however, gazed longingly at the balance sheet of his credit chit. An entire month's salary had vanished in the blink of an eye. There was barely enough to pay for utilities and rent, not to mention food.

But as he cast a sideward glance to Lucy behind him, he put away his disappointment for now. She was not smiling, but neither was she frowning.

"...I don't know what to say," she mumbled, sniffing. A small smile was starting to form on the corner of her lips. She looked up at him, confusion in her eyes, "Or what to think. It's the first time that someone's given me something nice in a very long time. And to think that..."

She trailed off, looking at the ground. "Let's go home," she said, in a quivering voice.

* * *

A/N

And it seems the muse has decided to not shut up for once. For which, I must say, I am glad.

A little clarification here, that may be a little confusing. Cerberus is an organisation composed of multiple cells, all of which in theory only know of their fellow cell members, and their immediate superiors. Cells do not know what other cells are doing, hence Miranda's ignorance as to what happened in the diclonius research cell. However, that doesn't mean that contacts in other cells can't get loose lips, particularly when with someone they might have known for a long time.

Also, for those viewing using proper formatting on desktop computers; I just noticed that there is a mistake with the way FF displays centre aligned text on the same line as the navigation drop-down. It actually displays normally on a mobile device, and I can't do anything about the way it shows on desktops.


	5. 05 - Mens, Corpus et Animae

Look into the fountain of all knowledge;  
Tell me, Odysseus, what do you see?  
Is there much treasure of great worth to dredge  
Beneath the gentle boughs of the world tree?

Sometimes, perhaps, it is better to seek  
No deeper than dank, dark, unwholesome earth;  
For that which ever will odiously reek  
In value and truth has terrible dearth.

* * *

"Commander," Miranda said, barely lifting her eyes from her datapad, "It's good that you've come so quickly,"

Shepard crossed her arms and frowned as she regarded Miranda. "It's common courtesy to look at the person you're talking to, Miranda,"

"Sorry, Commander," replied the brunette. She still scanned the datapad in front of her. "I didn't call you here on a whim. You asked for information on Subject 13?"

"Subject 13? Lucy?"

Miranda nodded. "It appears that the rumours about the spy's ship arriving on the Citadel may have some truth. One of our agents spotted someone with exactly the same build and features on Zakera Ward last afternoon,"

"How do we know this agent spotted her? And not someone else?"

"We don't. Appearance is one thing that we can use to identify her, but we couldn't get close enough to do it conclusively. Our agents have been instructed to keep their distance,"

The Cerberus agent then looked up and handed Shepard the datapad. On it was an image of a pink-haired girl in a fashionable asari-made dress, with a large stack of boxes in her arms; and in front of her was a turian in a standard patrol officer armour, though notably missing a breastplate. A gigantic red bowtie was attached to the top of her hair, large enough to obscure any horns. If there were any beneath, of course. "There is, however, one more lead that they provided. On all occasions that she had been spotted, she was with a turian C-Sec officer. We couldn't get a high-resolution image of his face, but the minor markings apparently match those of House Carius, while the major markings indicate his origin as Palaven,"

Shepard had no idea what either Palaven's or House Carius' markings were like, but she made a mental note to ask when she arrived on the Citadel. "Lieutenant Bailey might know of who this Carius is. He does look after security in Zakera Ward, after all,"

"That's a good idea. In any case, we should be arriving through the Widow Relay any minute now. I'll be in here, going over any leads,"

"Alright then. Let me know if you find anything more,"

* * *

Lucy sat on the couch beside Charon, humming as she looked over a large, black-and-red pistol. The coffee table in front of them was piled high with every gun that Charon owned, along with a rather large pile of heatsinks. Their ammunition blocks lay in a neat row beneath the table; they had all been removed by Charon before he reluctantly allowed Lucy to look at his collection, so that she would not shoot one by accident.

"You seem terribly interested in this pistol," he growled, taking the Carnifex from Lucy's hands. Turning it over in his hands, he noted the lines that he had carved along the gun's barrel, "This one has been mine since my father gifted it to me on the day of my enlistment,"

"It looks familiar," murmured the pink-haired girl. All of those Cerberus troopers had a pistol that was rather bulky and heavy; something that resembled the pistol now in Charon's hands.

"I would not be surprised. The Carnifex pistol is famous for stopping krogan in their tracks with a well-placed shot. It is rather popular among criminals and mercenaries,"

"I take it that a krogan is something to be scared of?"

"Definitely. There are very few things that could stop a krogan in a blood rage," he muttered, turning over the gun and placing it back on the coffee table, "That being said, I have been on the receiving end of an angry krogan's charge, and they do not strike anywhere near as hard as you did this morning,"

"I'm sorry," she said guiltily, turning away from Charon. Had his armour not been in the way, she would have crushed his ribs to dust, and killed yet another person that cared about her.

Or seemed to care about her for his own gains, commented a dark voice inside her head.

"Humans generally do not hit anywhere near as hard as krogan, even when they are strongly-built and well-trained. I would certainly like to know more about how you managed to do that," he continued.

Lucy's shoulders slumped and she sighed, pointing at the horns on her head. "I suppose I can tell you," she spoke, hollow resignation in her voice, "I'm...not human. Not entirely, anyway. These horns...my abilities. I...it's probably easier to just show you,"

Four weapons levitated off the table, seemingly of their own accord. Charon stared in fascination as they hovered in the air, mimicking the recoil of a firing handgun; all while Lucy held two more in her hands, performing the same actions. They came gently to a rest on the table again after a while, stacked neatly as they had been before.

"I must say, I have not seen anything like that before," said Charon, closing his mouth when he realised it had been hanging open through the display, "I do not detect the telltale static field of biotics, which my sister always seemed to have when she wielded those abilities. What was that?"

"Something that only brings death," she muttered darkly. The turian felt something like a hand – or four of them – rest upon his shoulder, "These...hands. Vectors, the scientists called them. I can use them to hold things, pull things apart, cut things. Or kill things,"

"Killing things?" Charon echoed, tilting his head. The invisible hands on his shoulder lifted their weight, and suddenly a piece of discarded armour plate levitated in front of him. In the blink of an eye, the ceramic plate had been reduced to fine dust, scattered all over the floor.

"...I did that to them," continued Lucy quietly, after a brief pause. "Did that to every man in that facility that was in my way. The ones that shot at myself. The ones that shot Kouta. They all died. They deserved to die! Each and every one of them!"

Charon said nothing. Lucy's red eyes were filled with tears, overflowing with pain and hate. Hate for being born the way she was. Hate for the humans that had imprisoned her for many years, and experimented upon her like they would upon a mindless animal. Hate for those that had killed the only friend that she knew for all of her years. The pain of friendlessness, scorn and misery, isolated from anyone she knew. As she looked up to face Charon, she glared at him, awaiting the inevitable abuse that would inevitably come, as it had so many times before.

Yet it did not come. Instead, Charon shook his head and stood up.

"...I cannot say I fully understand what you have seen or experienced," he said slowly, mulling over what he had seen and heard, "But I know enough to not inquire any further. There is no reason to reopen old wounds,"

"You think I'm a monster, don't you?" Lucy murmured, staring at her feet.

"For defending yourself? No," Charon calmly replied. He stood up and walked over to the weapons workbench on the other side of the room. Reaching underneath the bench, he pulled out a sleek, silver handgun, stroking its surface almost reverently with a talon. "I believe this is yours,"

"I don't own a gun," snarled the pink-haired woman, crossing her arms.

"You will now. This was my sister's, before she was killed in action on a colony in the Traverse. I insist that you take it," he spoke, in a tone that brooked no questioning, "And read what is written on the side, for it seems that this was as much for you as it was for her,"

He dropped the pistol into her hands. The weapon was almost the same as the Carnifex that she had handled earlier, though it was more than a little heavier. Its entire body was seemingly crafted of a single slab of silver, seamless and polished to a mirror finish. An inscription ran the entire length of the heatsink slide on top of the gun, carved in bold angular lettering.

"I cannot read this," she muttered, squinting at the foreign glyphs helplessly. Charon sat next to her, turning the pistol so that he could read it.

"Blessed is he who endures temptation, for he shall receive the crown of life,"

Lucy stared in confusion at the turian, unable to comprehend what he was attempting to say. But before she could ask anything, he growled, "I wish for you to keep it. Now, it is getting late, and I think we both require some sleep,"

* * *

"I can't believe that the Citadel doesn't permit night-time docking any more," grumbled Shepard, as she disembarked from the Normandy. They had been instructed to remain in space until Zakera Ward had entered its daylight cycle again; which, thankfully, had only been a few hours.

"Security seems to have been beefed up," Jacob noted, observing the long lines of passengers in front of a C-Sec desk.

"I guess Sovereign's visit really made them rethink security," she commented drily. Doing what she had done so many times ago, she strode up to the locked blast doors, letting the security scanner scan her three times.

To her surprise, the lock flashed red with an angry beep. "Personal identification rejected. ID is currently deactivated,"

"Ma'am, I'd have to ask you to get in line with the others to have your paperwork filled out," the turian guard beside the door said, motioning to the long line behind the C-Sec desk. She gaped in disbelief; that would take two whole hours to clear! Fortunately for her, the guard's radio buzzed on. "I read you, Captain Bailey. Oh. Alright,"

The turian switched off his radio and turned to Shepard again. Tapping a few buttons on his omni-tool, the door beside him slid open. "Captain Bailey said to let you through. He wants to see you. And your friend here seems to have passed security checks; he's free to come with you,"

"Captain Bailey?" she whispered under her breath, grinning, as the two walked through the security doors.

Inside the wards, the grizzled old man that she knew sat behind a desk, typing busily into a computer. Stacks upon stacks of datapads weighed down the table beside him. As Shepard approached, however, he looked up with a smile.

"You look pretty good for someone that's just climbed out of a coffin, Shepard," he joked, standing up. Shepard grinned in response, shaking his hand. "Where have you been for the last two years?"

"Being rebuilt from scratch takes time, Bailey," she replied jovially, to which he laughed.

"I'd say it would, considering that most of us that died stay dead. Hang on, let me fix up your identity record. It says here that you are dead, which isn't possible considering that you're standing right in front of me,"

Typing quickly on his computer, Bailey soon stood up again. "There. Your ID should work again, at least for getting around the Citadel. I can't reactivate your Spectre authorisation, though; you'll need to see the Council for that,"

"Thanks, Bailey," Shepard replied gratefully.

"No problem. Beats trying to get your paperwork sorted out with those damned bureaucrats. It'd probably take you two full weeks to get an appointment with them, and then another two to get the issue fixed up. Probably even longer, considering that you arrived on a ship in Cerberus colours. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to my work,"

"Wait, Bailey," she said. Bailey raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair, "You see everyone that goes through Zakera Ward, don't you?"

"Can say that I probably do, with this night curfew on the docks. Why do you ask?" he answered, a curious expression on his face.

"I'm looking for someone. A tall person, slim build. Pink hair, red eyes...horns," Shepard said.

Bailey leaned back into his chair, frowning. "I see a lot of people coming through, Shepard, but I don't recall any woman with those features. And definitely not one wanting to be found by Cerberus,"

"Are you sure?" she pressed on, "No C-Sec officers-"

"I meant what I said, Shepard. Now, I really got to get back to work. Those guys outside need to have their IDs processed before they start rioting," he interrupted her loudly, motioning to the growing stack of datapads beside him.

"Hm. Alright then," she muttered, not at all convinced.

The two walked towards the transit stop and hailed down a shuttle. One touched down not long after, with the Salarian driver motioning them to take a seat.

"I think he knows something, Commander," Jacob whispered, sitting himself down.

"I agree. The question is, how much does he know, and how?" replied Shepard. Turning to the shuttle driver, she said, "Citadel Presidium, council chambers. We're expected soon,"

* * *

Silversun Strip. It was a place that Charon didn't expect himself to return for quite some time, owing to his permanent posting on Zakera Ward. That, and his lack of a skycar. Unlike the other places in the Citadel, it was always in a permanent state of night, as the premier location for nightlife and entertainment. As the gaudy neon lights of the Strip came into view, he had to suppress a grin. The memories of messing around with other off-duty C-Sec agents and friends came flooding back in a pleasant wave.

"I've never seen anything like this before," Lucy said, taking in the brilliant view. It was almost a festival, with so many lights and people milling about and laughing.

"I can imagine that you have not," replied Charon, "How is the headpiece fitting? And the armour too?"

"Fits...well enough. Are you sure this is going to hide my...things?" Lucy said, tapping on the band over her head. It was a combat eyepiece, modified to have large earpieces which extended to cover her horns. The eyepiece itself folded neatly into the headband while not in use; while she could not read what it said, she was told that it was supposed to help with aiming guns.

The armour, however, was a slightly different matter. They had borrowed a spare suit of standard C-Sec armour designed for asari. It was a little loose around her chest, and both the shinguards and thigh plates were too short; but otherwise, it fitted her well enough.

"Positive. Nobody has stared at you yet, have they?" he grunted, lifting a heavy case out of the shuttle they hired, "I am glad that Armax Arsenal Arena is not too far away. Carrying all this across the Strip would break my back,"

The weapons case suddenly became lighter, and Charon stumbled off to one side. Frowning, he looked at the case, only to notice that Lucy was sitting on top of it, smirking. Realisation dawned on him on what had happened, and he shot her an appreciative grin.

"This case is certainly heavy. Are you sure you have not put anything more in it?" he said, making a mock-grunt as he heaved the now nearly-weightless case along. Lucy chuckled, hopping off the case and walking beside him.

"I think I may have put a few too many heatsinks in," she said jokingly, though her expression soon shifted to worry. She whispered into his ear, "I thought you were teaching me how to use these guns to fight Cerberus. This place doesn't look like it's got anything that might help,"

"I did say that, and I can tell you that this place does have something to help,"

They stepped through the brightly-lit entryway of Armax Arsenal Arena. Lucy gasped as she took in the sight of its interior. Vast screens were showing live arena matches, with dozens of oohing spectators sitting down in comfortable couches on every floor. A few on the second floor were looking down through a shielded viewing platform onto the arena floor, cheering as a loud blast sounded from further inside. A few turian children were hanging around a model of a turian soldier, pretending to shoot each other using toy guns, laughing all the while.

"What is this place?" Lucy asked.

"Armax Arsenal Arena. It is a place where we have simulated battles. There's a public firing range below where I can teach you how to use guns safely,"

"Simulated...battles?"

"Yes. If you learn quickly today, perhaps we can have some time to have a battle ourselves," Charon said, grinning.

As they climbed up to the second floor, Charon noticed that Lucy gripped the weapons crate as though her life depended on it. She was biting on her lip as well. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"I...these battles aren't real, are they?" she mouthed. Her face paled upon seeing one of the turians on the viewscreen launched several metres by a rocket, landing with a hard thud.

"No. They are simulations. These battles are perfectly safe. Inertial dampeners are active everywhere in the arenas," he reassured her, "The worst that you could suffer are light bruises. No more than that,"

She nodded, though she remained unconvinced. The way that the turian was carried off the arena by staff members seemed a little too realistic. However, as that same turian emerged from a door in the wall of the second floor, her fears somewhat subsided. Not only was the turian still alive, he had laughed as he dusted his armour off, showing no more discomfort than if he had just tripped and fallen on the streets.

"Oh, so it really is a simulation," Lucy whispered to herself.

An asari staff member approached Charon as he drew closer to the competitors' entry. "I'm sorry, sir, but this area is off limits except for competitors,"

"Then it is a good thing I am one, at least for today," replied the turian, showing her a datapad. The asari scanned down the page and frowned, shaking her head.

"You're here two hours early, Mr. Carius. Your match does not begin until eleven o'clock," she said, "I'm afraid you can't enter the arena just yet. You are, however, welcome to use the firing range for practice until then,"

"I intend to do exactly that. Oh, and before I forget. She is with me," spoke Charon, motioning towards Lucy. The asari bowed her head respectfully to Lucy, and stepped to one side.

The competitors' door slid open, revealing a staircase leading further down into the arena. At the bottom of the stairs were a set of lockers and workbenches. Off to one side was a changing room, and to the other were two more doors.

"Alright, this should do," Charon huffed, letting the crate of weapons drop in the corner. Opening the lid, he pulled out a dozen heat sinks and a Carnifex. "The door to the left is the firing range. Let us enter,"

The firing range, Lucy thought, was just a simple room with almost nothing in it. There was a long bench, divided by tall partitions into single-person stalls; and in front of it was a long room, containing nothing at all. If she were a target on the other end of that room, this would be exactly what those Cerberus scientists had seen, she thought to herself, balling her fists.

"Lucy, come here, please," he called out from beside a stall and breaking her train of thought. He dropped the heatsinks onto the bench, and handed her the pistol in his hand.

"Now, the first thing that I must teach you is firearms safety. I am certain you are well aware of the dangers firearms pose to bystanders," said Charon, flipping the pistol in her hand and pointing at a small lever on the side of the pistol. "This lever is the fire selector. It enables and disables the firearm, and depending on what your chosen weapon is, it may even let you fire only a single shot with each trigger pull, or as many shots as it can before the heatsink starts to get too hot to fire another shot safely,"

"It's...currently disabled?" she asked, looking curiously at the small black lever.

"Yes, it is disabled at the moment, as it should be when not in use. Now, on the other side is the heatsink release button. Pressing it will eject the heatsink to the left side of this pistol, allowing you to put a cold heatsink back in. Weapons with an overheated heat sink will not fire. Now, try ejecting the heatsink, and put another back in,"

The button was rather stiff and difficult to press, and Lucy yelped in surprise when the side of the pistol flipped out, revealing a familiar red-and-grey cylinder. She slid it out gingerly and pushed a fresh one back in, at which point the compartment shut closed with a soft click.

"Good," Charon said. "Unlike ancient firearms, mass accelerator pistols' ammunition blocks last for a few thousand rounds. It should not be necessary to change them. Now, I believe we are ready for some target practice. Initiate level one, stationary targets, twenty-five metres distance. Four targets,"

Lucy gasped when four spheres materialised in front of her on the range. They seemed solid, and yet it seemed as though they should not be there. Nothing appeared to be suspending them at all!

"Hold your pistol with both hands. One over the other, one finger on the trigger. Use your thumb to disable the pistol's safety," Charon whispered into her ear. As soon as she had done so, he guided her arms gently so that the pistol was roughly eye-height. "Pull the trigger to fire,"

The weapon loosed a heavy slug with a deep, resonating bark. The recoil, large and unexpected, sent a shock through Lucy's arms and pushed her a step backward. Charon chuckled as the bullet struck one target with a glancing blow on its side. A near miss, but still a hit.

"Excellent attempt. Aim a little higher and to the right,"

Lucy smiled at his encouraging words. Pulling the weapon up again, she fired again and again at the target until the weapon in her hand hissed and vented steam. Ejecting the heatsink, she slapped another one in and resumed firing, relishing the powerful feel of the weapon's recoil. Some of the slugs missed and hit a glowing barrier at the rear of the range, where they vaporised on impact. Many, however, struck the targets, causing each one to disappear as they were struck.

"You appear to be enjoying yourself," laughed Charon, who leant against a stall and was content to watch Lucy continue to fire away, spent heatsinks clattering on the tiled floor. "If you wish, you are welcome to join me in my match later,"

"You thought of leaving me behind?" she replied, with a sadistic grin plastered on her face, "I was going to join you, even if you said no!"

* * *

"Commander. You have got to see this," Jacob muttered into his omni-tool, watching the Armax Arsenal Arena's vidstream.

Without any reason to meet with the Councillors, he had been ordered to remove himself from the Council Chambers. With Shepard taking longer than expected, he decided to trawl through extranet entertainment channels to pass the time. Never in his wildest dreams did he think that watching Armax Arsenal matches could be so productive.

There, on the primary arena's floor, was Subject 13. Pink hair whipping around wildly as she vaulted over walls and tumbled around corners, firing shot after shot without missing a beat. An unfamiliar turian with bright crimson facial tattoos was her partner in the match, mowing down hordes of simulated geth with a short-barreled heavy machinegun. A spent heatsink slid out of the pink-haired woman's silver pistol, before she caught a fresh heatsink tossed by her partner and slapped it in and continued firing.

The Cerberus agent's omni-tool pinged. "Jacob?" Shepard replied, "What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?"

"Tune in to Armax Arsenal Arena's vidstream. Live channels, arena one," mumbled Jacob, unable to take his eyes off the intense match. A Geth Prime had materialised behind a tall crumbling wall. Rather than charge around the corner to destroy the geth, the turian crouched down and motioned for the pink-haired girl to come. She nodded and leapt on top of his shoulders, at which point he heaved upwards with incredible strength and she vaulted over the wall, planting herself squarely on the prime platform's shoulders. Six shots found its mark in the back of the Prime's head, and the girl leapt off, leaving behind a sparking, headless wreck.

The turian, in turn, had been liberally spraying down the last of the geth troopers with torrents of high-velocity slugs. Judging by the dull golden ammunition block underneath the gun, it was an armour-piercing slab of hardened tungsten. The troopers, taking cover behind walls and crates, soon fell forward in sparking heaps, their meagre cover unable to stop the storm of slugs from shredding their bodies.

More geth troopers materialised to fill the gaps in their ranks. Slowly, the turian was pushed back; and so was the woman. They were now back-to-back, unleashing their fire in opposite directions. They were both smiling; raw, primal exhilaration visible on their faces as they unloaded a storm of slugs upon their opponents. Yet strangely, despite their distinct lack of cover, not a single shot touched them. There was neither the blue flare of impacted barriers, nor the purple flash of a biotic barrier. All the slugs flying through the air seemed to just completely miss them, veering off in random directions as soon as they even approached the pair.

Before long, the last of the simulated geth fell backward with a smoking hole in its chest, and the match ending siren blasted through the air.

" _And that is the end of the Armax Arsenal Arena match scenario, 'Recreating the Morning War', maximum intensity!"_ the commentator shouted, to a veritable chorus of cheers, _"The first and only time that it had been achieved with only two competitors!"_

"Commander, did you see it?"

"Now isn't the time, Jacob," she replied irritably, "I'm still in a meeting with the Councillors, and it's proving harder than I expected to convince them to reinstate me as a Spectre. If it's that important, record it and send it to my omni-tool,"

The communications line went dead. Jacob attempted to reconnect, only to be met with a simple automated message.

"Shit," he swore, gritting his teeth. He knew now that Subject 13 was present on the Citadel, but without Shepard, pursuing her was not an option. Not if he wanted to be spread out on the floor in more pieces than could be counted, if the personnel file Miranda had shown him was telling the truth. Checking the Armax Arsenal channel again, he noticed that the audio and video feeds had been cut, replaced by a series of advertisements for their latest guns.

Their best lead on Subject 13 had vanished.

* * *

A/N

Turians can be absolute blockheads sometimes when it comes to subtlety and remaining hidden. This is why you always let salarians do the wetwork and the black ops work . A turian infiltrator is sometimes almost as much a paradox as a geth infiltrator.

Mangahero: Your reviews are appreciated. Thing is, the difference in tech between 20xx (Elfen Lied timeframe) and 22xx (ME timeframe) might lead to humanity already possessing enough technology to make body modifications possible, even if it actually does nothing ability-wise. To alien species, these differences might actually be perceived as being very minor. Differences become more evident if you are part of the group that knows what differences to look for.

Reviews are always appreciated, guys. And thanks for reading!

Next up: the universal constant.


	6. 06 - Nemesis Adrasteia

Take heed, noble and valiant hero;  
The path to greatness is with danger fraught,  
Never further away than a stone's throw,  
Seldom is it seen, seldom is it caught.

While the road is lined with thorns poisoned,  
The lights of others shall illuminate  
The winding path that alone you would tread;  
The aid of others shall make it ever straight.

* * *

"Well. This is certainly...unexpected,"

Charon did not anticipate a rather large crowd of enthusiastic arena spectators cheering as he exited the athletes' entry. Many had their omni-tools out, taking photographs and recording videos; and more than a few were reaching out to him, slapping him on the back in a jovial manner. If he was not mistaken, there was at least one camera drone in the air.

Lucy, unaccustomed to seeing so many people close by, shrank behind Charon, clinging to his arm. She regarded at the nearest people suspiciously, as though they were hiding pistols behind their backs.

"Why are they so...happy?" she whispered grumpily. A human waved a datapad at her, screaming for something he called an 'autograph'. Only when she shot him a deathly glare did he desist, holding up his hands and backing away. The others, however, were not so easily dissuaded, and two more filled the gap where the man once was. Lucy snarled in frustration and covered her face with her hands, pressing herself even closer to Charon.

"I suppose we did clear the supposedly impossible Morning War scenario," Charon said sheepishly, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from camera blitzes. "Clear the way, please. Clear the way!"

Fortunately for the two, a number of C-Sec officers who had watched the entire event on their break forced their way through the crowd and formed a picket around them. "Lieutenant," one of them quipped gleefully, "Didn't think you were an arena jock! What's the occasion?"

"I will tell you later, Tullius. For now, get us out of here. My friend here does not appreciate crowds,"

"Yeah, no kidding," Tullius chuckled, noting Lucy's increasingly reddening face and clenched fists. Turning to the crowd, he hollered, "Alright, folks, show's over! Clear out before we have to book you for public disorder. There's a match that's happening live, go watch that instead of pestering these two,"

There was some grumbling, and more disappointed sighs, but the crowd eventually dispersed. Only one asari remained behind, in Armax Arsenal uniform. She handed two credit chits to Charon; one he held out to Lucy, smiling.

"What's this?" she muttered, eyeing the credit chit with a raised eyebrow. To her, it seemed like a silver-trimmed datapad. A little fancier than the others she had seen, but it was still a datapad. And the symbols on it still looked like strange, meaningless pictures to her.

Charon slapped himself mentally. Of course she did not know what these were, given how she had been locked up for so long. "This is a credit chit. I am sure you have seen Tessara use mine when you two were out shopping. These are used to pay for goods and services on the Citadel. And anywhere else in the galaxy, of course,"

"I see..." whispered Lucy, staring blankly at the credit chit in her hands.

"Hey, lieutenant. How much did you win from that match?"

"Thirty thousand credits," Charon said proudly, "Of course, I did not do it on my own. I instructed them to split the prize in two,"

"Still, fifteen thousand credits! You're paying for the next bar crawl on our next leave, lieutenant!"

"That I shall, Tullius. That I shall,"

After nodding his acknowledgement to the rest of the off-duty officers, he strode out of the building. Lucy followed him, carrying their weapons crate under one arm. It was lighter without all the heatsinks, though still heavy enough to warrant using her vectors over her physical arms. Not that anyone else could see them.

"Where's the shuttle?" Lucy asked, noticing that the landing pad near Armax Arsenal Arena was empty, except for an asari couple sitting on a nearby bench. Not a single vehicle to be seen, except if one were to count those already in the air, high above them.

Charon checked his omni-tool and sighed. "The driver indicates that his vehicle has broken down. We will not have transport for another hour or so,"

"Perfect," she grumbled, setting down the crate and sitting on it. Her stomach growled loudly, followed by the turian's own stomach, "...And I'm hungry,"

"Well, the Strip does have a few restaurants and bars," replied Charon, who looked around for a suitable place. "My human colleagues say that the noodle bar is a fairly good place to eat. Supposedly, they also provide a dextro version of their noodles for turians and quarians,"

"As long as it can be eaten, I'm up for it. I'd kill for some food,"

It did not take long for either of them to find the noodle bar. The appetising scent drifted from a busy stall on the other end of the Strip. One with a neon light depicting a ravenous krogan diving into a gigantic box of noodles. The bar's reputation, it seemed, was well-deserved. Every seat was taken by patrons who devoured the seemingly endless amount of noodles inside each bowl or cup.

"Doesn't look like there's a space to sit," muttered Lucy, her shoulders drooping.

"There are a few benches over there, under that tree," Charon spoke, pointing to a hologram of a blossoming cherry tree. "Sit down there, and I will buy something for both of us. Do you have any preferences?"

"It can't be worse than nutrient paste. Anything that's edible,"

The restaurant's queue was rather long, and it hardly seemed to move at all. With Charon in the back of the queue, Lucy wondered if they would even get their food back before their shuttle arrived to collect them. Sighing, she leant back, thinking about what had happened over the past few days.

Kouta's death had plagued her with nightmares at night. The sight of his body being torn apart by an anti-aircraft round, and then dissolving into a pile of smouldering ash sundered her heart. So was the feeling of cradling a fleshy skeleton in her arms, which disintegrated the moment she turned away.

Yet what hollow feelings she had in the beginning were slowly replaced by strange pleasure, as the nightmares slowly shifted towards the slaughter of other humans. The ones that had hurt her. The sight of all of those Cerberus troopers being torn to shreds, drowning her vision in blood, granted her some vindictive pleasure. Their screams were as a pleasant lullaby, gently calming her back into a deep sleep.

 _You need to kill them all. They don't understand the power you hold_ , the voice in her head whispered. _They only want to use you. Enslave you. Use you, and then murder you. Kill them before they do!_

"No, that's not right," she growled, clutching her head. The only ones that needed to die were the humans with Cerberus. And perhaps others that are in her way.

 _And which ones are not in your way? The humans all hate you for what you are. They will kill you as soon as they know._

"Hm. Their cooks are certainly efficient," Lucy heard Charon mumble. "Is something wrong?"

"No, just starving," lied Lucy. The murderous voice in her head vanished the moment that her nose caught a whiff of the delicious aroma wafting from one of the cups in his hands. Perhaps her hunger for food was greater than that for blood.

"I do not know if this is good by human standards, but I have been assured they are," he replied, handing her a large red cup and a fork. Sitting down on the crate beside her, he sniffed at the contents of his own blue cup. "I am curious. Let us eat,"

The two ate in companionable silence, simply content to observe crowds of people passing through the avenue they were in. To Lucy, it was a strange feeling; being so close to all these aliens – no, these _people_ – and not a single one made an off-hand comment about her appearance. Rather, it was as though she were no different from any of the others.

"Well, I suppose that my colleagues were not telling tall tales about this bar," Charon said, wiping down his mandibles with a tissue, "It is fairly good. But they still cannot cook a lupanix to perfection, unlike Tessara. How was yours?"

"It's...better than anything else I've had so far," Lucy admitted, slowly turning her fork in the cup. "Much better than nutrient paste,"

"Heh. Anything is better than nutrient paste or protein bars," chuckled Charon. His omni-tool beeped loudly, alerting him to an incoming message.

As he read the message, however, his expression darkened. "What in the spirits' name- she died, two years ago! I was there, at her funeral, providing security!" he muttered in disbelief.

"Who?" Lucy asked, her interest piqued.

"Commander Shepard. Hero of the Citadel. Saviour of the known galaxy, if you would believe what some people say of her," Charon muttered. Looking worriedly at Lucy, he added, "And I have just received a message from Captain Bailey that she wants to meet us. Specifically, you. And that she would be here in a few minutes,"

"What? Why? I haven't even heard of her!"

Charon sighed quietly. "Apparently, she has been reinstated to her former rank of Spectre. Which means that she can order anything from any C-Sec member, and we are bound to obey,"

"So...what does that mean for me?"

"In all honesty, I do not know. I know that it is impossible to bring back the dead. At least, with what technology the Hierarchy has," Charon said, sitting down on the weapons crate. "I did hear reports of a frigate in Cerberus colours docking in Zakera Ward. If there is technology that is not widely known, it would likely be in their hands,"

"I don't get it. What are you saying?"

"What I am saying is, be careful," Charon said, his shoulders slumping. "If this is somehow the real Commander Shepard, though...I suppose you have little to worry about. Bailey did mention that all biometric scans pass and that she is without a doubt the real Shepard. How that is possible, however, I do not know,"

The heavy footfalls of armoured boots was audible even through the colourful noises of the Strip. "It's rude to speak about someone behind their back, you know," a red-headed woman spoke, "Lieutenant Charon, is it?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, straightening up and facing her. "Captain Bailey informed me that you were coming to my position. I had no idea he had meant this quickly,"

"It doesn't take long for a shuttle to travel here. In any case, I heard that there was someone in your custody that I need," Shepard said, glancing at the pink-haired woman behind the turian officer. Almost as tall as the turian, slim build, and wearing what must be a modified targeting visor with oversized earpieces to hide her horns. That was definitely her.

Yet she was not paying any attention to Shepard.

"Cerberus," snarled Lucy, fists tightly curled. She was staring directly at the man behind Shepard, who had his hands out in surrender.

"I'm not out for trouble," he said meekly, taking a few steps back. Lucy shot him a death glare. If he took a single step forward, she would not hesitate to splatter him all over the street, witnesses or not.

A three-fingered hand grabbed hold of her shoulder. Looking up, she saw Charon frowning at her, shaking his head. "Let me speak to her for now,"

Slowly, reluctantly, Lucy stepped backwards. With what must have taken all of her self-restraint, she growled venomously, "Fine. Talk with this...Commander Shepard. But if _he_ takes another step towards me, I'll turn him to paste,"

"Thank you, Lucy. Now, Commander, I believe that it is best if we keep our talk quick. What is it exactly that you are after?"

"There are human colonies in the Traverse that are going dark. Colonists are getting abducted, and the Alliance can't spare troops or ships to investigate it," Shepard said carefully, "Collectors are suspected, and I think that the Reapers are behind them all. I'm after the best of the best to stop them,"

"The Reapers?" queried Charon, who tilted his head, "The Alliance destroyed Sovereign two years back. You do not think that they are back?"

"They will be back. We only destroyed their vanguard, the one that will bring their entire fleet into the galaxy," Shepard said darkly. "We need more time. The galaxy isn't ready yet to fight them,"

Charon cradled his face with his hands. The horrific memories of the geth assault on the Citadel were still fresh in his mind. Countless civilians died that day, and C-Sec struggled to even slow down the geth offensive. The entire Citadel Defense Fleet had been brought to below twenty percent effective strength, and the Alliance sacrificed the entirety of its Fifth Fleet to buy the _Destiny Ascension_ some time to escape. If there were _more_ of those things out there...he could not imagine what carnage there would be. Or if the entire galaxy could even stop them.

"Spirits," he growled, "So there are more of those...Sovereign ships out there?"

"I'm certain. Destroying the Collectors would buy us some more time to prepare," Shepard said, "And to do that, I need a team. The best that the galaxy can offer. I need Lucy on my team,"

"Commander Shepard. With all due respect, this is likely the very worst idea that I have heard," retorted Charon, shaking his head. "You are suggesting that we put a civilian in the firing line against an enemy of overwhelming power. In good conscience, I cannot allow the release of someone in my custody if it would mean their lives would be in jeopardy,"

"And I'd rather kill myself before joining Cerberus," muttered Lucy, glaring daggers at Jacob.

With neither Charon nor Lucy seemingly willing to budge, Shepard sighed. She could use her Spectre authorisation to obtain custody over Lucy; but that would likely work against her. After all, a member of a team that was forcibly recruited would likely be the first one that would turn against them. Especially if that particular member had a reason to be hostile to several other crew members on the mission. That alone was more dangerous than any number of soldiers any enemy could field.

But if she had her reasons to hate Cerberus, perhaps she could overwhelm that with a more compelling reason to cooperate.

"This is bigger than you, or me, or any single person in the whole galaxy," Shepard said softly to Lucy, "If we don't stop the Collectors and the Reapers, then we all will die. Doesn't matter if you're turian or human, asari or salarian. The Reapers are here to destroy all intelligent life,"

"And why should I care?" she chuckled bitterly. A feeling of dread filled Shepard as the woman peered at her with eyes as red as glowing coals; full of malice and without the least trace of human compassion. "Cerberus has taken everything away from me. A peaceful life. A loving family. The only friend I've ever known. Do you know what I live for now, Commander Shepard?"

She advanced slowly, walking one step after one deliberate step. Now almost standing close enough for their noses to touch, Lucy whispered coldly, "Revenge. With a smile. I will take from them everything that they have taken from me. Perhaps you'd like a taste of what I have planned for them?"

Without warning, Shepard suddenly felt a crushing feeling upon her chestplate, and she felt herself being lifted up a good foot or two above the ground. Lucy was merely standing there, her arms crossed and a lopsided grin on her face. Her suit's alarms were blaring in her ears; the plates on her legs and back were cracking under incredible pressure. The hydraulics in her armour's legs burst from the pressure, shooting high-pressure fluid into the concrete below, and her ribs felt as though they were about to crack.

"Lucy, that is enough. Please, stop," Charon pleaded, tapping her shoulder. Frowning, the diclonius turned around, and Shepard fell to the ground, coughing and wheezing.

"Fine. For you. Not for them," muttered Lucy, as she stormed past a group of bystanders that had come to watch.

Charon, for his part, shook his head and contacted C-Sec's local command that everything in Silversun Strip was under control, and that he was on the scene. This was going to be a long night filled with paperwork.

* * *

That night, Lucy awoke to loud clicking sounds. Not that she could sleep, in any case; the encounter with Cerberus – on the Citadel, no less – had left her with a fiery anger that had dissipated little. Grumbling, she turned over, pulling her thin blanket over her ears to try and block out the noise, to no avail.

The clicking soon stopped, followed by a loud crash and a groan. Quietly, Lucy sat up on the couch and looked around. The entire apartment was pitch black, with only dull purple neon lights outside illuminating it. There was, however, a sliver of light coming out from Charon's room. As she crept closer to the door, she could hear the same clicking noises as from before.

She wondered what that turian was doing. Judging by the near total darkness outside, it had to be late at night. Curiosity got the better of her, and she pulled at the door, hoping to open it a tiny fraction.

Only for the door to pull itself wide open. Charon was sitting down at a workbench beside his bed, various metal parts scattered on the floor around his chair. The turian immediately flipped around, a seemingly incomplete pistol in his hand pointed at the sudden noise; but on seeing Lucy, he lowered the weapon.

"Lucy?" he asked, scratching his head with his free hand, "What are you doing, awake at this hour?"

"Couldn't sleep. Kept hearing...whatever it is you're doing,"

She noticed that the pistol's exterior was silver. "Isn't that...?"

"It is your pistol, yes," he spoke, turning the weapon around to look at the exposed heat sink assembly. "I could not sleep either, so I thought of doing something productive instead,"

"Like...working on a pistol that already works?" Lucy asked, her brows furrowing.

"No. That is only to keep my mind off- Spirits, this is complicated," he groaned, putting the pistol down. "Come here. Please,"

Curious, Lucy approached, sitting down on the foot of his bed. Charon stood and sat next to her, cupping his face with both hands. He exhaled slowly, gathering his composure.

"Commander Shepard's return places me in a very difficult position," he growled, "Especially the fact that she appears to be working with Cerberus. And the fact that she has been formally reinstated into the ranks of the Spectres,"

"Spectres?" Lucy asked, unsure of what the word even meant.

"Special tactics and reconnaissance. The Citadel Council's elite agents," answered Charon, shuddering, "They answer only to the Council,"

Lucy was now well and truly perplexed. Charon had described Cerberus as being a group of undesirables in Citadel space. Yet Commander Shepard was clearly seen with one of their members – if not one herself – and was also supposedly part of the Council's own elite forces.

"How does this even make any sense?" Lucy muttered angrily, "She's either with one or the other! You can't be both good and evil at the same time!"

"I agree with you. It makes very little sense to me either. A very poor record would be a polite way of describing Cerberus' relations with aliens, and yet-"

The wrong idea seemed to flood into Lucy's mind. "You mean...they experimented on...your kind as well? And...Tessara's too? The asari?"

Charon shrugged. "I would not say that it is an implausible idea. Their agenda is human supremacy, at any cost. I have read reports on their activities, ranging from hacking of Salarian Union STG networks, to raids on secure Turian Hierarchy research sites. I know more than a few of my fellow colleagues have disappeared when investigating leads on them. Spirits, even _humans_ aren't safe from them, if Alliance rumours are to be believed. An entire platoon went missing, rumoured to be caused by one of their experiments gone awry,"

"Unbelievable," Lucy snarled, her hands curling into fists.

"I would ask you to calm down," said Charon, "As I have been saying, Cerberus cares very little about alien lives, or even human ones. This is why I have reasons to believe that Shepard is either operating under duress, or has some extremely important reason to even work with Cerberus,"

"An important reason? What's so damn important that she can even think about working with those..."

The pink-haired woman trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Charon reached over to a crate beside his bed and grabbed a datapad sitting on top of it.

"Perhaps it is better to show you. I have a feeling that I know what her reasons are," he spoke, "Here it is. C-Sec video dated to two years back,"

"What happened two years back?"

The turian shuddered as he responded with, "Sovereign invaded,"

The video recording began to play. The terrified screams of civilians filled the air as the video showed hundreds of geth troopers being hurled onto the Citadel from dropships. Every person, human or alien, that failed to find cover were cut down within seconds by barrages of blue plasma rounds fired by the machines. C-Sec officers valiantly fought back the geth from behind their ruined patrol shuttles, but were ultimately overwhelmed by the geth's sheer numbers.

Lucy swore that there was a gleeful cackling inside her mind now. Perhaps twice as loud, now that the streets of the Citadel were littered with dead bodies.

"How did they even get in," she asked slowly, still watching the ground battle unfold from the security camera recording. "There's...so many of them,"

"Hold on. Switching to the Presidium's camera feed video...there,"

She could now see the entire Citadel from the security camera's viewpoint; an enormous five-armed construct with cities built on the inside of each arm, with what could only be described as a cloud of ships floating inside its arms.

"Those ships belong to the Turian Hierarchy," Charon growled, pointing at a vast number of flat, angular ships, "And Sovereign is the squid-like one in the background, visible against the nebula. I do not think that I need to tell you that these are fully armed, well-equipped warships that we have,"

The warships fired shot after shot, as fast as they could, at Sovereign. And yet each shell simply seemed to vaporise before impact. Hundreds of shots, without doing the least bit of damage. The eye-like dot in the middle of Sovereign's body seemed to glow an intense red; and then a devastating beam shot out, tearing through two turian ships as though they were not even there.

"I had friends on those ships. They never had a chance against that one damned ship,"

Lucy was too shocked to reply. A dozen more ships were destroyed within the space of a minute; the turian fleet seemed unable to inflict any damage whatsoever on Sovereign. She gasped when the thing simply crashed into two larger turian ships, crumpling them like leaves under a heavy boot.

"That is the end of the recording," Charon said, "Sovereign hacked into all of our systems and shut them down,"

"Then...if this is true...how is the Citadel even still standing?"

"Through the sacrifice of many lives. Too many," he said solemnly, "Commander Shepard ordered the Alliance's entire Fifth Fleet to charge in and rescue the rest of the fleet, and then engage Sovereign. Our losses were incalculable; the Citadel Defence Fleet was reduced to twenty percent effective strength, and the Alliance's Fifth Fleet was crippled after the battle for a year,"

Standing up, he placed the datapad back on the crate. "But I will say this. Our flagship – the _Destiny Ascension_ – was carrying the entire Council. At the time, the Council did not contain any humans in it. If the Commander were truly interested in human supremacy, there would be no better time to ensure it than when Sovereign invaded. If she did not sacrifice the Fifth Fleet, the _Destiny Ascension_ would have been destroyed, and the ruling Council with it. That would allow humanity freedom to act as they see fit until the Council was rebuilt,"

"I...don't understand. What is Sovereign?" she asked, her voice shaky. The level of destruction that single ship wreaked on the Citadel fleets was astounding, even by her standards.

"Well, to keep explanations short; it is what the good Commander calls a 'Reaper'. The Council seems to disagree with her theories, and insists that Sovereign was simply a geth ship. I do not think that I have seen her any angrier than when they had essentially pronounced her a madwoman, only because her ideas do not agree with theirs,"

Lucy bit her lip. Maybe she was wrong to attack the Commander, simply because she had been with a Cerberus agent. Maybe this Commander was simply working with Cerberus because the Council did not help her.

"Maybe she's only working with Cerberus to use their equipment," muttered Lucy.

Charon nodded, agreeing with her assessment. "That is a likely reason. Now, enough of this speculation. Without speaking to Shepard, we may never know her true motives. There was also one other thing that I wished to ask, but you had fallen asleep before I could do so,"

The diclonius shrugged. "I'm awake. You can ask now,"

"I had reports from Captain Bailey that Commander Shepard ordered a deep search into Alliance archives for any record on you. Specifically, any person with the same physical traits,"

"And...?"

"There was only a single record found of a child with the same physical traits that you have. Horns and pink hair," Charon mused, scratching his mandible, "Yet strangely enough, the records for your father and your mother had been redacted,"

"What does that mean?"

"In my line of work, I know better than to ask questions about what happens to people whose records had been deleted on archival documents. It is likely that your parents had been forced to...disappear. I am sorry about bringing this to your attention in this manner; however, I believe that you have the right to know,"

Lucy didn't know how to respond. Charon had said it as though she should have been distraught by the news. Yet she felt little emotion at all; not even the slightest bit of sadness, nor grief.

"I don't see why you should have to say sorry about this," she said coldly, "I don't remember them. I don't know them. And I don't see why I should care about them. You know that I've been held by Cerberus for longer than I care to count,"

Charon nodded. "That is true. I suppose it is difficult to care about someone if you have never known them. Which brings me to what I am about to ask,"

"Then ask,"

He raised his arm and brought up his omni-tool. "Personal records. 2185, Earth standard years. Begin playback," he spoke into it.

"Mr. Kanagawa, I ask you as a friend, and a brother. Do not do this," Charon's voice sounded from the device. There was the humming of a ship's engine in the background.

"You said yourself that promises must be upheld, and justice must be dispensed. But you're asking me to stop? Stop from doing what is right, and what I've promised for so many years?"

"This is madness!" he roared, "Please. Think about this. You are entering a den of vipers and snakes. Cerberus cannot be trusted. They may have invited you, but I do not doubt that their intentions are evil. They will eliminate you as soon as you have finished working with them,"

There was a slight pause in the recording. If Lucy was not mistaken, there was a slight sniffing noise. One that had a certain flanging quality to the sound.

"Maybe it's dangerous," she heard Kouta say firmly, "But I've made up my mind. I'll only stop when I'm dead. I'm bringing Kaede back out of there when I can,"

"But what if you fail?"

"Then...I would ask you that you do what I couldn't. Everyone deserves a fair chance at life. Everyone. You saw how C-Sec treats the homeless that they called duct rats. They're now productive citizens, working from my house in Kithoi Ward. What sort of man am I, if I abandoned the one I loved, while I did not abandon strangers in need?"

"This is still not right," Charon growled, "You know as well as I do that it is meaningless to sacrifice so much to achieve only part of your goals. You said that you dreamed of living with her. To raise a happy family, have children, and watch over them as you grow old. If you died in the process, then what would your sacrifice mean?"

"If it means that another injustice is corrected, then I think I should be happy with that,"

There was a slight keening sound. "Was that...were you crying?" Lucy asked Charon, who nodded in response.

The recording continued. "Charon," Kouta said gently, "Promise me. If I...if I fail to return, then you will look after everyone as though they were family,"

"I will. On my honour as a full member of House Carius, I swear to protect your charges as though they were members of my own house. I do not agree with what you are doing, but if nothing will sway you, then...spirits guide you, Kouta. Return safely,"

"And that is the end of the recording," said Charon thickly, "The homeless that he had saved now run his boarding house in the lower parts of Kithoi Ward. I ensure that there are always enough patrols directed there, for their safety. The only person remaining that I have not yet fulfilled my promise to is yourself,"

"...You've taken me in, and treated me like a...person," Lucy said, sniffing. "That's more than I could ask for. You don't owe anyone anything,"

"The others that Kouta protected are not relevant to Cerberus interests, and are therefore safe. You, however, are a person of great interest to them. As you very well know," he spoke, straightening up. "If they were to raid this apartment, then there would be little that I could do to resist dozens of well-armed, well-trained attackers. Considering that they must have some people in the Alliance to alter records, I believe that it is entirely possible that the humans could turn a blind eye to anything that happens to you. Especially as you have no official record relating to your existence in human society,"

"What are you suggesting?" she asked, confused. He was making very little sense.

Charon then pointed to the red paint on his face. "Kouta's lifelong desire was for you to have a family with him. Failing that, he desired your happiness and safety above all else. A human family appears to be out of the question, given the circumstances against you. And I have seen that you deeply distrust your own kind. My protection alone is insufficient, and therefore I cannot satisfy his requirement that you are safe. The only recourse that I can think of that will resolve all of these is to induct you into House Carius,"

Lucy frowned. Inducting her into House Carius? What did that mean?

"This would grant you the rights afforded to every turian or client species member of the Hierarchy," he continued, "That prevents the Alliance from extraditing you on the basis of any fabricated claims. Furthermore, you would be entitled to the assistance of every House Carius member, wherever they would be in the galaxy,"

"Their assistance?"

Charon smiled wryly. "Yes, our assistance. House Carius is often called old-fashioned by other turian families. We adhere strictly to the old moral codes of the Hierarchy; every member must assist other members in need, provided that they have not violated any laws. We are together in life, and we will never surrender one of our own before we are dead. Every cousin, no matter how distant, will band together against perceived threats. That is how it has been for more than three thousand years, and how it shall always be in our family,"

What he was describing made her eyes water with longing. A family. A tight-knit family. One which assists each other, rather than tearing each other to bits. It was something that she wished for, perhaps almost as strongly as she desired revenge. And yet...

"I don't deserve this," she spoke sadly, standing up. Walking to the window on the other side of the room, she sighed. "I would only bring death to your family's doorstep. Cerberus won't stop until I'm back in their hands. I should not even be here, risking your life with every night I spend in your care,"

"I am well aware of the risks, Lucy. I have been investigating their agents for long enough to know that their eyes are everywhere; and where they have eyes, they may also have their agents ready to eliminate or capture a threat. Kouta would not wish you to die for nothing. For your sake, and to honour his last wishes, please, do not venture out alone. There is strength in numbers,"

Turning around, she looked at the turian. There was a peculiar expression on his face; seemingly split between great sorrow and terrible despair.

 _Maybe there's a good reason why he's this worried_ , Lucy thought to herself. _Maybe I should trust him. He has treated me well for the past few days, after all_.

 _Or maybe he's just waiting for you to show weakness, and then abandon you. Kill him now, and be done with it!_

 _Shut up,_ she mentally screamed at the voice in her head.

"Why do you offer this? Putting your entire family at risk, all for someone you barely know?" Lucy asked.

"I assure you, that if Cerberus were to attempt a raid on our family mansion in Cipritine, they would need an entire assault legion's worth of troops," he replied, waving her concerns away. "An attack by Cerberus is the least of our concerns,"

"Fine. Have it your way," she said, her shoulders slumping in resignation. If he was so insistent on offering her help, then who was she to refuse? "What does this involve?"

"Nothing on your part, aside from applying the family and colony colours," he spoke, tilting his head, "I will notify my grandfather of the circumstances of your induction, and that should suffice for now. You will have to return to Palaven sometime, however, to meet with the heads of my family and be formally admitted as a member of our family. For now, come with me to the bathroom,"

The bathroom was a rather tiny room, barely large enough to accommodate both of them. A tiny mirror sat on the table, beside a pot of bright crimson paint, along with several unfamiliar metal implements that Lucy had never seen before.

"For the first time you apply the paint, it must always be done by another who is in the family," Charon explained, picking up something that looked like a metal spatula, "Please stand here, in front of the mirror, so that you can see how it must appear,"

Awkwardly, Lucy stood in front of the mirror, carefully squashing herself against the wall so that Charon could move his arms freely. With a little adjustment, she could see herself clearly in the mirror, with Charon hovering in the background and murmuring something inaudible while stirring the pot of red paint.

"...Hmm, that should do it," he said, lifting up a spatula and allowing the red paint to flow back into the pot. "Now, stay still as I apply the markings. I shall explain the meanings of each one as I draw them on your face,"

The spatula hovered above her nose, and she felt something cold and wet being pressed against the top of her forehead. The spatula dragged downwards; she coughed as a strong coppery smell assaulted her nose.

"The colony markings of Palaven. The home planet of the turian race, and the capital of the Hierarchy. It is a vertical stripe, extending to just below our noses, adorned with an upside-down wedge starting from our lower mandibles. For you, I suppose it will have to start above your chin," Charon spoke, dipping the spatula into the pot of paint again and gently painting a wedge just above Lucy's chin.

The wedge itself was quite broad, extending beneath her eyes, though not so wide as to cover her cheeks. She frowned when Charon took a tiny spatula from the tools on the table, wondering what that was for.

"The markings of House Carius, which are wedges on the corners of the eyes. These represent our duty. We are ever vigilant against whatever may threaten us, and this will remind us whenever we see ourselves," Charon spoke, drawing narrow wedges near the corners of her eyes. "With these markings applied, you are one of our family, in all except blood. No one of us will turn you away from our doors, if you were to ask for help. The same, of course, is expected of you in return,"

When he had finished the last stroke on the family markings, Charon put the tools and paint gently on the table and smiled. Without warning, he pulled Lucy into a tight bear hug, knocking the wind out of her.

"Welcome home, sister," he rumbled, a happy chirp in his subharmonics. Uncertainly, she returned the hug, patting him gingerly on his back. Eventually, however, an unfamiliar warmth filled her heart; and she soon melted into his embrace, revelling in the simple pleasures of that moment.

Cerberus could wait for the time being.

* * *

A/N

Researching the turian facial paint types was...interesting. Apparently, despite all the comments made about bare-faced turians being untrustworthy, a very large number of turians on the Citadel are actually bare-faced. Since the game is somewhat inconsistent about which colony marking patterns belong to which colony, I decided to just pick one and run with it.

After watching Elfen Lied again, I have even more doubt now about the true nature of diclonii. Were they all psychopaths by nature, or was it all caused through their inhumane treatment by normal humans? In any event, my assumption for this story is that nurture is greater than nature.

Next chapter: Right and wrong is not as easy as black and white. Sometimes, you just have to settle for grey to do the right thing.

A/N 2:

Thanks to Kaioo for pointing out an error, but it seems we're BOTH wrong XD Piqued my interest enough to make me go and research it. Kudos!

The Alliance Fifth Fleet wasn't destroyed, but was only crippled. Neither the First nor the Third participated, as Joker only brought the Fifth to the last jump before the Widow relay.


	7. 07 - The Gordian Knot

Every riddle must have an answer,  
Every problem, a true solution.  
Yet what of those stubborn few, forever  
Without either, save oblivion?

Between Helios' blazing, burning light,  
And Hades' chilling gloom, all-devouring,  
In Gaia's bosom hidden from plain sight,  
Is a solution for them, a-waiting.

* * *

Morning soon arrived, and with it the first golden rays of dawn. If there was even such a thing on a space station, given that all environments were simulated.

"Too bright. Shut it off," Lucy whined, turning away from the light and covering her head with her pillow.

She couldn't remember a single night where she had slept this well. There wasn't a single nightmare that plagued her thoughts at night, nor a blistering headache in the morning. Upon hearing of her rather vivid and disturbing nightmares, Charon had offered her a sleeping tablet left behind by an asari C-Sec officer that had decided to stay the night with him. One which supposedly was strong enough to 'put a fully grown elcor to sleep for six hours'. Whatever an elcor was.

The light, however, was not the only thing that was pushing her to awaken. A piercing buzzing noise came from the datapad on the steel crate beside her, causing her to fall off the couch with a surprised yelp. Rubbing her sore backside, she picked herself up and tapped the datapad, hoping that the thing would just shut up.

Which, fortunately, it did. For a brief moment.

"Lucy. If you are listening to this, you are probably awake. Probably due to the alarm I had set," Charon's recorded voice spoke, "I did not wish to disturb your sleep, as you appeared to need it after yesterday's activities. Congratulations, by the way. My colleagues were very impressed with your performance in the Arena,"

She smirked as she heard the slight hint of pride in his normally impassive voice. Was her victory really that impressive?

"In any event, I have contacted my grandfather first thing this morning. While he has been...thoroughly unimpressed...by the manner in which I inducted you without consulting him first, he has accepted that the deed is done, and you are already one of us. Come to the C-Sec office on Zakera Ward's docking bays once you have eaten some food. I ordered a levo-friendly meal to be delivered to my apartment from Tessara,"

Sure enough, when Lucy peered to her right, there was a clear box sitting inside the delivery chute beside the door. Filled to the brim with what appeared to be a fruit salad, with a sealed tube of milk next to it.

"There are two C-Sec officers posted just outside the apartment lifts. They will take you to the C-Sec office. Ask for their names, and make sure that they respond correctly. Their names are Marcus and Sabine. Both are turians, one female and one male. Due to a security breach earlier this morning involving a mercenary group, I think it is best that you travel with subordinates that I personally trust,"

The datapad beeped once. "End of recorded message," it droned, and then fell silent.

 _Typical,_ she thought to herself, rolling her eyes. There was never any rest for somebody like her.

It was only after quickly devouring the provided meal that Lucy noticed that her armour was in a single pile beside the weapon rack, with a copper-coloured Carnifex beside it along with two heat sinks.

"Didn't get around to finishing what you started, did you?" she grumbled, picking up the pistol and examining it. It was less well-balanced compared to the silver one, but it had to do.

* * *

True to Charon's words, there were two turians outside of the apartment in blue C-Sec patrol uniforms. One strongly resembled Charon, though with darker skin and a larger crest. The other was lithe and slender of build, with no crest at all. Possibly a female, if the higher-pitched voice was any indication.

"Must be them," she said to herself. "Marcus and Sabine?"

The turians turned around. For a brief moment, their mandibles flared in confusion; only then did Lucy remember that she was still wearing what was normally a turian-only marking.

"Yes, ma'am. Constable Marcus and Constable Sabine," the male replied, recovering his composure. The female simply nodded, crossing the shotgun across her chest. "We are instructed to escort you to the C-Sec office near the docks,"

It was not a long walk to the C-Sec office on Zakera, though it was a different path than what Charon normally took. The ward's main avenues were bustling with various people going about their own business; well-dressed and walking with confidence, as opposed to the cowering homeless in the side streets. Shops on the side were nearly entirely covered in garish neon lights, bathing the entire place in a dazzling display for as far as the eye could see. Looking up, she noted that there were galleries and balconies on the towering apartments either side of the avenue.

"Charon said there was a security breach earlier," Lucy said, frowning. "Isn't this a little too open to be safe?"

"Ma'am, Lieutenant Carius ordered a general sweep of this location earlier. I would be surprised if something happened," the female one spoke, shaking her head. "Especially not with C-Sec on high alert. There's at least a dozen officers still sweeping this area for a second time,"

Lucy still glared suspiciously at the balconies above. If she could see a shooter, deflecting a bullet was simple. When there were so many blinding lights about, it was extremely difficult to spot a single person acting strangely.

Thankfully, the short trip was without incident, despite her misgivings. Inside the C-Sec office, Charon was standing beside Captain Bailey, looking as though he were deep in thought. On seeing Lucy, however, he relaxed and motioned for her to come.

"Lucy. It is good to see that you have received my message. I trust that there were no additional incidents?" he spoke, his subharmonics a low rumble.

"No. There's nothing out there. At least, nothing that wants to shoot at me,"

"Good. Good," he said, relieved. "There was a group of Blue Suns that were smuggling Red Sand into the Citadel, and they were discovered. A dozen officers and a few civilians were killed in the crossfire, but we managed arrest one alive and killed seven of them. Two are still at large,"

"Were you...there?"

"Fortunately, no. I was not there, as I was busy relaying orders to officers that were on patrol,"

Bailey coughed once, tipping his head towards the closed door to his left. "As much as I'd like to let you two chat, there's some business that needs to be attended to. You two, come with me through the door and into my private office,"

The captain waved his omni-tool and the door slid open. "Take a seat," he said curtly, pointing to the two chairs in front of a desk.

When they were seated, the captain sighed deeply, cradling his face with one hand. "Lieutenant Carius, you're damn well aware of the conditions under which you asked for her custody. Secrecy. Off the books. And you took her to the Armax Arsenal Arena, competing in a public exhibition match?"

"Apologies, sir," he said, wearing an inscrutable expression.

"Apologies aren't going to cut it, Carius!" Bailey snapped angrily, "Half of the damned Citadel knows about her, because that video of her in the arena with you has gone viral on the extranet. This is public knowledge now. And we're all being questioned about _how_ she managed to get into the station without a valid Alliance citizen ID, supposedly right under the noses of C-Sec,"

Bailey took a moment to glare at him, before continuing, "Ambassador Udina has come earlier, demanding that I explain how I allowed this to happen. He has also exhibited a decidedly unhealthy interest in extracting you-" he pointed at Lucy, "-back to Earth, in the shortest amount of time possible. Something smells fishy about the way he insists, but without hard proof I can't do anything about him. For now, I've simply told him that C-Sec is conducting an internal investigation into you, which should prevent him from interfering for another week or so,"

"I could have just turned that man into paste if he came looking for me," Lucy said offhandedly, earning her a glare from Bailey.

"That would go against everything we've done so far. That man is essentially untouchable while he is the assistant ambassador for the Alliance. Even if I would personally approve of him being spaced in tiny little chunks," Bailey growled.

"I already have a plan, Captain,"

"Let's hope that plan of yours is properly executed this time, Carius. You know how this will turn out if we end up being investigated by the Council; we'll be slowed down for weeks, and God knows how many scumbags will escape under our noses while we're distracted,"

"There will not be an investigation. She will be legally a Hierarchy citizen by the end of today," countered Charon flatly.

Bailey stared at Charon as though he had grown another head. "A Hierarchy citizen? By the end of today? How does that even work?"

The turian calmly explained, "An application sponsored by a current member of the Hierarchy in good standing will be processed faster than those without a sponsor. Provided that the applicant already consented, of course,"

"Huh. Makes sense, I guess. Especially with those facial markings painted on her. Still, I won't hear the end of this from Ambassador Udina. You know how he is," grumbled Bailey, standing up. "But if you think you can pull this off...then, by all means, go right ahead. He'll have to pester Sparatus instead, and that will be something I'll have to see. Just make sure your plan doesn't fail. You're dismissed, lieutenant,"

Bailey strode out of the room, leaving Lucy and Charon inside. Charon sighed in relief, wiping his face with a sweaty palm.

"Well, that could have been smoother," he spoke, "With a few Blue Suns members hiding in the Citadel, the captain has been irate all morning,"

Lucy shrugged. "I heard from the two you sent to get me. They didn't seem too bothered about these...Blue Suns. What are they, anyway?"

"They call themselves 'private security contractors'. Polite manner of saying, 'mercenaries'," Charon nearly spat, "Honourless flea-ridden varren, all of them. The galaxy would be better off if they were all killed,"

"If that's an invitation to do it, I'll add that to my list of things that need to die. Right after Cerberus, of course," Lucy said, grinning.

"I do hope that was a joke. Or maybe, I do not," he said, a crooked smile on his face. "In any case, I do have a reason for you to be here. Grandfather has organised all the paperwork for your application to the Hierarchy, but we still require your authorisation to make it binding, as well as an oath of citizenship. The oath itself should count, if you are to recite it,"

"What do I need to do? And what's this that I need to recite?" asked Lucy. Charon brought up his omni-tool and tapped a few keys, and the device turned green.

"It is an oath of loyalty that states that you will defend the Hierarchy's interests, just as it will defend yours," Charon said, "Repeat after me, please,"

"...I, Lucia Carius, do solemnly swear upon my honour..."

"...That as a citizen of the Hierarchy, I shall stand beside my fellow citizens as brothers and sisters in arms in both times of war and times of peace,"

"...That I shall strive to uphold the virtue and honour of the Hierarchy, in being just and fair in all my dealings with others, whether they are my brothers and sisters or otherwise,"

"...That I shall strive to be true to the law, wherever I may be; for a true turian recognises that peace exists only in the absence of discord,"

"...That I shall defend my fellow citizens with my life, just as they will for myself,"

"...This I swear upon my honour, on this day. May the spirits forsake me if I should ever falter and break this oath,"

The omni-tool faded from sight. "There. It is done, and sent. Grandfather would see to it that the application is processed by the end of this day. After that, as a citizen of the Hierarchy, you would be protected from extradition back to the Alliance,"

"Lucia?" Lucy said, narrowing her eyes. "My name is Lucy,"

"I am well aware of that. The turian citizenship registry does not exactly function as well as I had hoped," Charon said, scratching the back of his head, "Many human names do not translate very well. That was the closest name I could write on the registry without causing an error,"

Lucia. It was close enough, she supposed. "Fine," she said, standing up. "Is there any reason why we still need to be in this office?"

"No, there is not," he replied, "I did, however, prepare something special for you last night. Come with me,"

Intrigued, she followed Charon to his office. On his desk was a silver weapon; though it was nearly unrecognisable from a distance, the same black, scarred grip definitely marked it as hers.

"What you did to Commander Shepard's armour made me wonder," he murmured, picking the weapon up with both hands, "If those invisible hands of yours were capable of crushing hardened composite armour with ease, they would also be capable of lifting or resisting great forces,"

"You've seen me lift crates and people up with them. What are you thinking exactly?" Lucy asked, now truly curious.

"You have seen the different weapons that those geth use," Charon said, listing them off on his fingers. "Shotguns. Assault rifles. Rocket launchers. All of them require two hands to use effectively. Even pistols and sub-machine guns are normally used with two hands, even if someone were capable of effectively using them with only one hand,"

"...Okay? I'll take your word for it,"

The turian then lifted the pistol to eye level, aiming it at the wall to his left. "It is usually to do with being unable to aim accurately with just one hand. Other times, however...it is recoil,"

Lucy nodded, unsure about where Charon was taking this. The Carnifex did have significant recoil; she could not deny that. But it was still nothing that could not be handled with just one hand.

"A heavier body would be able to absorb the shock better than a lighter one. Otherwise, one would require more force to stabilise the weapon," continued Charon, "Or...one could hold it with two hands instead of one,"

"Are you suggesting that I...use the gun with one of my vectors?" Lucy asked, finally understanding his idea. A small grin crept onto her face. The vectors could probably resist far more shock than her arms ever could.

"That would be a start. What I am truly suggesting is that you could use weapons likely intended for even krogan. I am curious, though, if you could actually wrap the vectors around your own hand. Similar to a glove,"

Frowning, Lucy concentrated on one of her vectors. She had never even attempted anything like this before. Carefully, she walked forward and crouched down, gingerly reaching for the base of Charon's desk. She had to be careful with gripping the desk; crushing it was very much a real possibility. To her relief, however, she could pick up the desk with one hand – along with all the objects perched on top, without causing so much as a scratch on its paint. Huffing, she set it back down again. Fine control was far more taxing than she thought.

"Interesting. So it would seem that my idea has been proven correct," Charon murmured, nodding in approval. "It so happens that I have modified your pistol for testing. The element zero core charge inside the pistol has been doubled, and the rail assembly lengthened. Ordinarily, heat generation and recoil would be prohibitively large. Heat could be managed by simply switching out the heatsink more often, but that is a minor issue if the user's hand would be broken by simply firing it. If your hands were to be augmented with your vectors' grip, recoil absorption systems would be redundant..."

Seeing Lucy's blank stare, Charon coughed and reiterated, "Reinforcing your hand with a vector lets you use more powerful weapons with one hand,"

"I...see?" Lucy said uncertainly, "I'll take your word for it, then,"

"Well, perhaps it is best to see for yourself, yes? Shall we visit Armax Arsenal Arena this evening?" replied the turian, grinning as he handed back her weapon. Lucy immediately perked up, nodding vigorously. "Very well. I will make the arrangements. We will go there after my work shift is over,"

* * *

"No, Commander, I can't fix this," Jacob said, lifting up a markedly crushed chestplate. Shepard nodded and winced, instantly regretting that she even moved from the medbay. Chakwas had said that all her ribs were mildly fractured, and that they would heal over time.

Miranda, who was leaning against the wall of the armoury, commented, "I'm surprised that she didn't kill you. That entire suit of armour looked about as bad as what we salvaged when we picked you up from Alchera. What stopped her?"

"Her turian friend got her to stop. Lieutenant Charon Carius, I mean," Shepard groaned, carefully sitting down on a nearby workbench.

"Interesting. From all the records salvaged from the Cerberus facility on Etamis, it was impossible to get her kind to co-operate without the threat of pain or death," Miranda said, puzzled, "Apparently, shock collars were necessary to control them, in addition to verbal threats and constant reminders that many guns were pointed at their backs. How did he calm her down without doing any of that?"

"He didn't do anything except ask her to stop. It was that simple," Jacob answered, putting down the chestplate.

Shepard glared venomously at Miranda. "From what she said to me, I think you're smart enough to figure out why she won't co-operate. What on earth have your scientists been doing on them? She's out for blood, Miranda. Cerberus blood. Tell me the truth; did Cerberus kill any members of her family, or anybody close to her?"

Miranda shifted uncomfortably. After a moment, she said stiffly, "I can't answer that, Commander,"

"Miranda. If you want me to work with you to get her on this team, I need to know this,"

"It's...I can't actually answer the question, Commander. I have nothing on her personal information. Only logs on what experiments had been done and their results. There was absolutely nothing on her relations with other people,"

Frustrated, Shepard cradled her head with one hand. This was getting nowhere. "What kind of research was Cerberus conducting on her anyway?"

"Combat ability evaluations on a number of mutant humans, if we're going by the salvaged records. Subjects displayed mental telekinetic abilities similar to biotics, but without any element zero present in their systems,"

"And by combat ability evaluations, you mean...?"

"There was a table here regarding projectile velocities and their masses...and the number deflected...days in isolation, and relative strengths over time..." Miranda murmured, scrolling through her personal datapad, "The method was missing from the records, but I can imagine that the testing was..."

The implications were truly unpleasant. Shepard found herself turning away in disgust. There was little wonder in her mind now about why Lucy had responded the way she did on seeing a Cerberus emblem on Jacob.

Yet as much as Shepard would prefer to simply put Lucy aside as being unnecessary for the team, she found herself with another reason to get her away from the Citadel. The safety of the people on the Citadel was at risk as long as Lucy was still on the station. For now, Lieutenant Carius could keep her in check; yet the possibility that he could not restrain her more violent urges remained a very real possibility. And the probable body count in that event was far too high for her liking.

"Hey, Commander," Jacob spoke. The man was now staring at his omni-tool. "Just checked the extranet again. Looks like Lieutenant Carius booked the six o'clock match at Armax Arsenal. If you're still going to go after her, I think this might be your best chance,"

"Noted, Jacob. Thank you," replied Shepard, nodding. "Leaving her on the station is an unacceptable risk for everyone on the Citadel. We're going after her. If we can talk her into coming with us, that would be the best option. Otherwise, we will have to try something else to make her leave for somewhere less populated. We will get to Armax Arsenal Arena to watch that match, and then hopefully meet her as she exits the match,"

"And then what?"

"We will talk to her. No guns, no armour. Casual civilian clothes only. Don't wear anything that might mark you as Cerberus. If just seeing that triggers her violent responses, then wearing something along those lines will only get you killed,"

"I hope you know what you're doing, Commander," Jacob said, shaking his head.

* * *

A/N

Udina is a real scumbag in every ME game. . *orders Lucy to turn him into a pile of mush*

Actually, considering the Council, I sometimes wonder if Lucy hadn't gotten to their brains first...

Next up: Paragon level check. Is it high enough? Or has Shepard been naughty and gotten herself a few Renegade points?


	8. 08 - Strength in Unity

All the prideful ones that shall skyward soar  
Seeking Elysium's bright gate of gold;  
Take heed of the plight of Icarus poor;  
The farthest of falls are those of the bold.

* * *

Armax Arsenal Arena was even more crowded during the evening than it had been during the day. Where there was a couch or two still empty around the monitors during the day, the entire second floor seemed to be a literal sea of spectators at night. Lucy could only gape in shock at just how many people were watching the current competitors, their cheers blasting out like a thunderous wave every time one of them downed one of their opponents.

"So many people," she muttered, shaking her head.

"Well, the firing range is always available if you would only like to fire a few shots without competing in public," Charon replied, "I did promise a few colleagues of mine that I would be coming with them for a match, however. I had hoped that you would join us, but if that's not the case..."

"I didn't say that I wanted to miss out on all the fun, did I?" she protested, slapping Charon lightly on the back. He chuckled and continued up the stairs to the second floor, Lucy following him closely behind.

"Here for the six o'clock match?" the asari security guard at the top asked. Charon nodded to her, and she giggled happily, "Good show yesterday. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! I want to see more of that,"

On seeing Lucy's face – or rather, what was painted on it – she paused and blinked, trying to process what she was seeing. "Uh...are you two...?"

"Brother and sister," Charon finished for her, "As of this morning,"

"Oh. I'm not too sure about turian traditions. But I'm sure it's a happy day for both of you! Congratulations!"

"Are asari always like this...?" Lucy whispered, as they passed by the cheerful guard. Charon chuckled and shook his head.

"Asari are...well, let us say, long-lived. For the first few hundred years of their lives, they simply want to travel and see the world. And probably bed every man or woman that they fancy. Judging by the way she looks, she is probably in that stage. Excitable and friendly,"

"A few hundred years?" Lucy gasped, stunned. "I thought Tessara was my age,"

"Tessara's almost two hundred years old. Which is still fairly young,"

"Two hundred years..." she repeated slowly, trying to fathom just how long that was. Her musings were cut short, however, by a familiar flash of red hair among the spectators. She looked closer at where she thought she had seen it, though a family of asari moved in and obstructed her view.

"Lucy, we are late," Charon spoke, pulling on her shoulder. Noticing that she was staring into the spectators, he asked, "Is something wrong?"

"...I think that woman from yesterday is following me," she growled, clenching her fists. "I could see that red hair from a mile away,"

"Shepard is not the only human to have red hair, Lucy. It could possibly be somebody else,"

"Maybe," replied the diclonius, still eyeing the crowd of spectators suspiciously.

In the dressing room, a group of turians and humans were already sitting down on the benches. Half wore armour with a red stripe painted on their fronts, while the other half had the same in blue.

"Hey, the lieutenant is here!" one of the humans called out, noticing that Charon was approaching.

"Apologies for being late,"

"Get the stick out of your butt. There's no need to speak like that with friends,"

"I do not understand what you mean," Charon said, his mandibles flaring outwards.

"So formal, man, so formal. You need to chill for once," the dark-skinned human to his right spoke. Noticing Lucy, he stood up and spread his arms wide, "And look who it is! The one and only butcher of all geth. Man, we could've really used you during Sovereign's attack on the Citadel. Or if you were three hundred years early, I'd say that the quarians could, too,"

"Thanks...I guess?" Lucy said, unsure whether she was being insulted or not. Judging by the approving nods that the others gave, she supposed that he was actually complimenting her.

"No worries. So what's it going to be tonight, el-tee? Another match against the geth?"

"No, not quite. I believe that Lucy here could benefit from a teamwork session. How about a mock battle? Five against five, normal gravity, eliminations. First to score six victories wins,"

"Five against five? You're on, el-tee," the human laughed, echoed by the others. "So, what's the teams?"

"Detachment Sixteen, versus the rest of us, plus myself and Lucy," he calmly replied. Four of the humans and the turian woman beside the lockers cheered in response, bumping their fists against each other's. The three remaining turians looked at Charon with flared mandibles, questioning his decision.

"Sir, Detachment Sixteen is...they're the counter-terrorism squad of Zakera's central ward," one of them spoke nervously, watching the other squad attach suppressors on their rifles, "They get far more combat training than we ground-pounders ever did. We'll get smashed!"

"No, we will not be defeated. Not unless you believe it to be true, sergeant," Charon reassured him, "They may have the best equipment and the best training on the Citadel, and they would still lose without teamwork. Their overconfidence will be to our advantage, if we can focus and work as one,"

Still somewhat unconvinced, the sergeant nodded, checking over his shotgun one last time. Turning to Lucy, Charon said, "You may use your vectors to deflect incoming rounds, reinforce your hands, or jump. I am not sure if the inertial dampeners of the Arena are designed to withstand something like a direct strike, so please do not attempt them,"

Lucy shrugged. "If these are your friends, I don't think I have any reason to use my vectors on them,"

"Excellent. Let us enter the arena, then. Oh, and before I forget; let me adjust your headpiece's settings, so we can communicate with you,"

"Communication is necessary...?"

"In all teamwork, yes," Charon spoke, keying a frequency into the earpiece of Lucy's headgear. "There. Press the button over the left earpiece if you wish to talk. Wherever you are in the arena, we will be able to hear what you say. And the reverse is also true, of course,"

"But we dealt with the geth just fine," huffed Lucy, raising an eyebrow.

"Permission to speak, sir?" the sergeant asked, turning to face Lucy. Charon nodded, and he continued, "Geth aren't particularly bright. And the Arena's geth simulations are watered-down versions of the real ones. They have numbers to overwhelm us, and better technology too, but that's about it. Against other people, however..."

"They can be unpredictable," finished Charon, "One never knows where an opponent would strike from, or what they will use. And this is the reason why teammates are necessary. When more than one person is working together, each can protect the others from threats that they would have otherwise not been able to see. For the first round, I would like you to go with Sergeant Castrix. Follow him in the arena, and support him as best you can. I will stay behind you and provide covering fire,"

"What about the other two, sir?"

"Constables Fedorian and Drusus have stealth modules attached to their armour. They will perform recon duty and let us know about enemy positions,"

"What about the other team?" Lucy asked, as Charon attached a blue stripe on her armour, "Do we know what they're using?"

"I do know, but I would prefer to let you see the surprise beforehand," he chuckled, flashing a predatory grin, "After all, the surprise is part of the reason why this style of arena match is far more... _entertaining_. For both the spectators and for the competitors,"

The way that Charon emphasised that word made her shiver in trepidation. Was there something that she was missing here?

* * *

"Mark. Two targets, twelve o'clock,"

"Copy that, lieutenant. Concussion out. Fedorian, Drusus, eyes on the enemy?"

There was no reply from either of the scouts. Or rather, there was a deafening reply that left her ears ringing. A rather loud bang sounded through the arena and amplified through the comms unit, making Lucy flinch behind the wall that she had been taking cover behind. A turian with white markings sailed through the air and just slowed down barely a foot off the ground, at which point he held his hands up in the air and walked back to the team's starting position. The scoreboard hanging above the arena ticked up by one, indicating that one of their team had just been eliminated.

"Drusus is down," spoke Charon through the comms unit. A barrage of loud barking noises from his light machine gun sounded through it immediately after; the scoreboard ticked up on their part, indicating one of the opponents had also been downed. "Target eliminated. Lucy, Castrix; two more targets, two o'clock. I will provide suppressive fire. Move to the cover on your right,"

"Copy that, lieutenant," Castrix said, motioning to the tall wall to his right. Lucy nodded, following the turian; his barrier flashed and broke as he sprinted through the open space. "Shields down! Sniper, unknown position. Lucy, keep moving!"

She didn't need to be told a second time as a high-velocity round whistled past her head. She was grinning broadly; Charon was right. Not knowing the opposition _was_ entertaining. Their enemies were far more intelligent than any of the simulated geth. They took cover, and were extremely difficult to spot in the simulated night-time urban environment. It made for heart-pounding, fast-paced excitement.

Diving behind the wall beside Castrix, she looked up at him for instructions. "I saw that last shot coming from the right. We know two of them are on the left, and pinned down by Charon. One is down, and two more are in unknown locations," he said, peeking around the side of the wall and quickly backing away when another high-powered shot barely missed his nose. "And that sniper is still out there. Back of the line, all the way past the open space in the middle,"

"Lieutenant! Taking heavy fire!" called another voice. A whirring noise and a barrage of shots so rapid that it sounded like an thundering waterfall rang through the whole arena, "Spirits! The other two are on my tail. Requesting assistance!"

"Fedorian is taking heavy fire on the right side. Move in to support him," Charon ordered over the chattering of his machine gun.

"Copy that, lieutenant," Castrix replied, through gritted teeth. "Damn. This is the part where it gets fun. On me, Lucy. We're going in!"

As they charged out of their cover toward their pinned teammate, another sniper rifle shot streaked across the battlefield. Lucy noticed that it was aimed at neither herself nor Castrix; with the turian's shields down, it would have knocked him flat to the ground if it struck home. Yet in the corner of her eye, she noticed that the constant stream of bluish-white rounds from Charon's machine gun had ceased entirely.

"Charon is down," said Lucy, peering over her shoulder. He had one hand held up in the air in surrender, walking back to the start with a large dark bruise on his mandible. A flash of fury flitted across her features as she realised that in a real battle, he would likely be dead.

"Move in to secure Fedorian. I'll take point!" barked out Castrix. The turian sergeant raised his shotgun and charged forward, firing as fast as he could and forcing their opponents to dive behind low walls.

Breaking cover, Lucy charged out with him, to the turian's horrified expression. Why should she listen to him? The other enemies were there, and she was certain she could hit the closest one at this range. Three shots struck the wall behind which her opponent was taking cover, causing his shields to burst in a shower of sparks as the slugs penetrated the wall. A fourth one struck home, knocking the man flat to the ground; a moment later, he stood up, hands in the air.

"Target down!" Lucy shouted in elation. However, none of her teammates responded to her shout. Only then did she notice a faint grinding of metal on metal, coming from her feet. When she looked down, she noticed a small white sphere rolling at her feet, a red light blinking in its centre.

It was at that moment that she was treated to the strange sensation of flying through the air unaided. She could see the positions of the opponents; the two in the far left corner were suppressing the remaining two members of her own team, while their sniper on the right fired another two quick shots on target, ending that match with a loss.

Maybe she should have listened to the sergeant after all.

* * *

"Well, we have performed better than expected," Charon sighed, rubbing the bruise on his mandible. Fedorian and Castrix nodded glumly, each also sporting bruises on their faces and arms.

"That we did, lieutenant," Drusus said happily, in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Come on, guys. We're just rank and file ground-pounders, and we actually managed to take them all out once. Against counter-terrorism elites? I'll take that as a reason to be proud!"

Castrix perked up a little on hearing that. "Yes. I will admit that we did quite well against them, despite their advantage in experience and equipment. That being said, Leighlin did mention that he was particularly impressed by Lucy's grenade return. Excellent thinking, girl, and even faster reflexes!"

"...Thanks," replied the pink-haired girl, blushing furiously. She was clutching an ice pack to her smarting jaw, where a concussion round had impacted it from her blind side. A hot shower had done wonders to ease the stinging, but it still hurt as though it had been hit by a hammer.

"We do this every fortnight, in this time slot. Armax Arsenal is usually happy to let us play for practice – and for entertaining their guests. You are welcome to join us, if you would like," the sergeant continued. Noticing a female turian peek her head in from the exit, waving five credit chits, he thumbed towards the door and added, "Best part about it, is that we get paid for providing the entertainment. Not as much as C-Sec does, but this is much more entertaining, with much less standing around waiting. Fedorian, taking the payout?"

"On it, sir," the dark-skinned turian spoke, standing up and collecting the chits. "One for you, one for you...one for you...one for the lieutenant...and this one's mine,"

"Thank you, Fedorian. Now," Charon said, looking at the group, "Our other friends have left for drinks. Shall we join them, or do we have other plans for the night?"

"I think we've all got other plans for tonight, lieutenant. I'm returning to Palaven for a month; my wife's having a pair of kids, and she'll kill me if I don't get there in time," said Fedorian, to which the others responded with nervous chuckles. "What about you guys? I heard Castrix is taking an asari lady out for a good time in Purgatory,"

"That place in the Presidium? Spirits, how do you even get enough credits to pay for that?" Drusus gasped, checking his credit chit, "Oh, I guess this will just about cover it for half a night. Maybe the whole night, if you stick to the cheaper drinks. Still, are you really going to spend this much just for a night out?"

Castrix nodded. "Affirmative. I owe her that much for the last outing,"

"She had better be worth all those credits you're spending on her," responded Drusus with a teasing trill in his subharmonics, "Spirits, I think you'd spent enough on her to buy yourself a mid-range shuttle by now. But if you think she's one to keep for the rest of your life, you better get that stick out of your butt,"

"Stick out of...his butt?" Lucy asked, thoroughly bemused - and rather disturbed by the image.

"A figure of speech," Charon informed her loudly, trying to drown out the laughter that now filled the changing room. "It means that he is excessively rigid in character,"

"Much like our lieutenant here," Drusus choked, still trying to control himself. On meeting Lucy's unimpressed glare, he added, "Just a joke. We all love you, lieutenant, even if you can't seem to speak normally to everyone else,"

"I am not sure that I am particularly interested in males," Charon responded dryly, squeezing Lucy's shoulder. "I suppose that means that you are all busy for the rest of the night. In that case, I will see you at work next week, yes? It is the weekend tomorrow, after all. Stay safe, officers. Dismissed!"

"Affirmative, lieutenant!" they chorused in unison.

One by one, the turians filtered out of the changing room, laughing and joking, until only Lucy and Charon were left. Checking the time on his omni-tool, he pulled gently on her arm. "We should leave. The next session is starting in a few minutes,"

"Alright then, I'll get our gear," she replied, collecting the weapons crate with her vectors.

"I will admit, this result was better than I expected," Charon murmured, pulling her in to a one-armed hug. She gasped and almost dropped the crate, surprised by the sudden gesture.

"We still lost,"

"I know. I had expected as much," he said, scratching his head. Lucy looked at him in confusion. Didn't he say earlier that the match was possible to win, if they had worked together?

Realisation dawned on her. "You didn't...you organised this match, didn't you?"

"I may have," he grinned. On seeing Lucy's scowl, his expression quickly became serious. "I did, in fact, organise this with the counter-terrorism squad, since their scheduled outings are on this night, every two weeks. Our teammates, however, normally have theirs on alternate weeks; I simply asked them if they could reschedule theirs to be tonight,"

"Why? Why did you do this?" she asked. She was still somewhat annoyed that he had not said anything about it, yet more curious about his reasons. After all, someone did not go out of their way to organise an event like this without having some purpose or another.

"Partly to relax after a long day of chaos, and partly to assist you with your goals," he said, letting her go and crossing his arms. "You still desire Cerberus' destruction. As I do, and as every other law enforcement agent does. We were willing to assist you however we could,"

"I can shoot just fine, and my vectors can still rip them to shreds," growled Lucy. As if to prove a point, she lifted the crate behind her and lowered it again.

"I will not dispute that. However, have you thought about the results of your actions?" he spoke gently, pulling up his omni-tool. A holographic video popped up from its surface, showing her in the arena during various moments. "Let us review the match. Sergeant Castrix was moving into position behind cover, so that he could make sure that you were safe as you moved forward. Constable Fedorian was in no immediate danger behind cover, and he was ready to snipe the opposing team's assault trooper. You rushed forward, blocking Constable Fedorian's line of fire, and forcing him to lower his weapon. You put yourself in the open, with no wall or other intervening object to your left, when you were aware that at least two opponents were on the left side of the field,"

"Then...that grenade?" she said, watching the recording. A round object, barely visible, sailed in from the left side, bouncing once off the floor before rolling to her feet. She could see Fedorian put his rifle to the side and take cover again, and Castrix ducking behind a nearby low wall when he spotted the grenade.

"When I was eliminated by their sniper on the right side, there was nobody left to provide information on enemy locations. They had moved into position without anybody on our team able to see them. That grenade was from one of them,"

"How was I supposed to know that?" she demanded. The sensation of being thrown up into the air by an explosion was strange enough, but now that she was seeing herself being launched like a ragdoll made it far more embarrassing than it had felt before.

"You do not," Charon replied, shaking his head. "In a real combat situation, one does not know everything. With experience, you start to understand that everything has meaning on a battlefield. Every movement, every sound, every action. Your actions. Your movements. Your teammates' actions. Your teammates' movements. The enemy's actions. The enemy's movements,"

"I don't get it. What are you trying to say?"

"It is far easier to maintain control of a battlefield with the assistance of teammates than on your own. I will not dispute that you can likely kill every one of us in a one-on-one situation. Our weapons simply cannot penetrate your vectors' defenses, if you see us fire first. But what if the threat is unseen, and you were unable to react in time?"

"That grenade..." she murmured, realising what he was trying to say.

"If you had followed Sergeant Castrix's order to move towards Constable Fedorian, then you would have been behind cover. The grenade would have detonated in the middle of an empty space, and Constable Fedorian could have eliminated Sergeant Leighlin as he exited that doorway. All three of you would have been still in fighting condition, and the probability of victory would be much higher with numbers being equal,"

She fell silent, digesting the information.

"Lucy. This was a combat simulation, where everything is mostly safe," Charon spoke slowly and deliberately, "In a real battle, a single mistake could cost a life. A grenade detonated at your feet during the match. Against Cerberus, that would have killed you instantly, had it been a proper fragmentation grenade. Multiple times, you had been shot in the back by a shotgun when you had failed to check around corners in both directions with a teammate at your side. That would have killed you, as well. And once, near the end of the match, you were shot by a sniper from the side, when you were busy trying to shoot at an opponent who was behind thick, tall cover. You would be missing a jaw or more, not simply bruised,"

Something wet fell onto her cheek. As she looked up, she noticed that Charon had shed a single tear.

"I lost my sister because she was foolhardy enough to charge into a crime lord's lair without support. I lost a person who was essentially a brother when he broke you out of Cerberus' facilities without asking for proper backup. Spirits, do not make me think of what I would do if I lost another sister!" he all but roared, causing Lucy to flinch. Calming down slightly, he repeated softly, "Do not make me think of what I would do if I lost _another_ sister, Lucy. You are strong, I will not argue otherwise. But strength has its limits, and you have others who will help you when you reach them. Remember that,"

At a loss for words at the normally stoic turian's vehement words – and the way that he had declared just how much he cared for her - Lucy simply pulled him in to a tight hug. There was no need for words to express her gratitude, nor any sufficient to show it even if she wanted to speak. Two wide fingers stroked her hair as she listened to the faint keening noises that Charon was emitting.

"I am sorry. That was perhaps...inappropriate and excessive," Charon quietly said, pulling away from her. "The next group of athletes should be arriving at any minute. We must leave,"

"I'll be right behind you,"

* * *

"Lieutenant Carius," Shepard greeted the familiar turian as he emerged from the athletes' entry of the Arena. His mandibles tightened in exasperation as she approached.

"Commander Shepard," replied Carius, nodding ever so slightly. A box floated behind him, seemingly of its own accord. It dropped to the ground soon after, a pink-haired woman scowling angrily behind it. "I do not suppose that this meeting is one of chance?"

"I can't say it is, lieutenant. I'm here to speak with Lucy,"

"Here to take me back to Cerberus?" Lucy said icily. Shepard took a step back as she noted the malicious spark in her orange-reddish eyes, "Not happening,"

"Lucy, please. Let me talk to her first," Charon said. Lucy sighed and stepped back, still glaring murderously at the Spectre agent. "Thank you. Now, I believe that the previous time we have met, Lucy made her...displeasure...very clear. In particular, of your associates. I do not think that has changed,"

"Is this really the best time or place?" Shepard said, eyeing the gathering crowd. With the previous arena match finished, the spectators who were not intending on watching the next one were dispersing. A rather well-known Spectre and the previous match's competitors talking in the middle of the foyer did _not_ encourage an environment for a good private discussion.

The turian, however, merely looked over his shoulders and shrugged. "I believe that it is, Commander. My _sister_ -" he pointed to Lucy; specifically, her markings, "-has no reason to be speaking with a Spectre in private,"

"Maybe I do, Charon," Lucy growled, glaring pointedly behind Shepard. Specifically, at Miranda and at Jacob behind her. "Maybe I do. Find a corner stall, and let's sit and talk. Before I lose my temper. Just seeing them-"

"Very well. You do not need to finish speaking," Charon said loudly, resting a hand on her shoulder. She glared at him but nodded, crossing her arms, "Well, let us find a seat then. That one will do," said the turian, pointing at a corner booth behind a tall wall.

"Alright. Have it your way," Shepard sighed resignedly. The distaste for Cerberus among C-Sec was rather well known, but the other officers had been at least accommodating when it came to her, considering her Spectre status.

The onlookers dispersed as Charon waved them off, Lucy helping to clear the more stubborn ones by merely looking at them. As they seated themselves in a quiet corner, Shepard felt a strange sensation that something was grasping at the neck of her black hoodie; when she looked at Miranda and Jacob, she noticed that they also wore similar expressions of shock and discomfort.

"Sit," Lucy said. Then, in a dangerously quiet voice, "Or I will end you here, witnesses or not. Do not do anything other than what I say,"

"I would suggest listening to her, Commander," Charon said. Then, turning to Lucy, he added softly, "If you can, I would prefer that you do not kill them or maim them. Keep it civil for now. You must at least respect that they have come unarmed, while we carry weapons,"

"They didn't seem to care when they shot me in the labs for so many years! But...I suppose a quick death is too good for these... _scum_ ," she spat venomously. The pressure at her neck lessened, though her hoodie still felt as though it were being pulled from behind. "Sit," Lucy said, straining to keep her voice level.

Shepard complied quickly, followed by Miranda and Jacob. To their credit, they were maintaining their composure, though the thick sheet of cold sweat forming on their faces showed their fear all too clearly.

"Explain," Lucy snarled, "Explain why you're here. I thought that I'd made myself clear last night what I thought of Cerberus. I thought that my message to you about what would happen if you came for me again was even clearer. But here you are again, following me, even after all that. With yet _another_ follower. Why? Do you really want to die that badly?"

"I just wanted to talk to you,"

The pink-haired woman let out a cold laugh. "You're already talking to me. And my patience is running very thin. If you have a point, get to it,"

Shepard took a deep breath. She needed to remain calm. With Lucy listening, she only had one chance to succeed in convincing her that she was not an enemy.

"I only wanted to know. What did Cerberus do to you?" asked the Spectre.

"I'm sure that at least one of you would have searched whatever those scientists were recording. That should tell you everything," Lucy growled, her eyes narrowing. Shepard felt the invisible force tighten itself around her neck. Was this ability dictated by her mood? "But if you're telling the truth, and you really don't know anything about it...I guess you're either brave or stupid to come talk to me, or both. Fine, I'll play nice. Just for once,"

Lucy spoke in a dark, low voice. "You've never heard of this living hell. Restrained for years, never seeing sunlight, in a cold, dark cell. Alone, without a single light in sight, aside from a window where scientists monitored me. All I had were these...bindings...and this stupid steel mask with what they said were bombs on the inside of it, and a feeding tube forced between my teeth. If I had to piss or shit, I just had to do it in my bindings. Some other Cerberus scientist would come and change them in the morning, all while a few rocket launchers were pointed at myself so that I didn't try to kill them. If they even bothered to change them at all, that is,"

She paused, her fists clenching so tightly that her knuckles were bone-white.

"Every few days, they'd take me to a room. They'd strip me down. Push me against the wall and restrain me with steel clamps on my arms and legs. Then comes the _fun_ part,"

The way that she said 'fun' – and the truly livid expression on her face - caused Shepard to shift uneasily. "Their scientists would fire lead balls from a cannon at me. I blocked them. I _had_ to block them, if I didn't want them to hit me. The balls became heavier and heavier, faster and faster, until eventually I'd get hit,"

"Did they stop after that?" Miranda asked uneasily. Her face was starting to turn rather green.

"Stopping after drawing blood? Yes, yes they would. They were nice enough to do that," Lucy replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "No. What's a few broken ribs, a broken arm or two and a broken leg to them? It's not their own, after all. No. They would keep going. They only stopped once they'd run out of balls, or if I'd taken a hit so badly that I was coughing or shitting blood. Or if I'd been knocked out,"

"How long did they do this to you, Lucy," asked Charon, causing her to look at him in surprise. The turian's voice was even, but there was no mistaking the smouldering fury behind those clenched teeth and flared mandibles.

"I don't remember. Years? It's not like they let me look at a calendar, you know," she said, shrugging.

"I see. Commander. If you are truly working for Cerberus, then you are dead to me," growled Charon, standing up. "However, as much as I would like Lucy to have her revenge here and now, it serves little purpose. Despite how strongly I would like to arrest all three of you for associating with a terrorist group and impound that ship of yours, there is a certain issue involving lack of evidence to confirm that Cerberus is a threat to the Citadel. I propose that you assist us,"

"Funny. I don't remember C-Sec issuing orders to Spectres," Jacob remarked. The man immediately lurched backwards against his seat and doubled over in pain, as though he had been punched extremely hard in the stomach.

"I am not issuing orders. I am merely suggesting that Spectre Shepard should perform her duty as a Spectre, to assist with upholding law and order," continued Charon, glaring into Shepard's eyes, "Impounding the ship or arresting the crew only serves to remove one aspect of Cerberus. To truly destroy it, we must have the Council declare it as a terrorist organisation, which then permits us to actively pursue Cerberus assets everywhere in Citadel territories and elsewhere. To do this, we require evidence of significant, truly unforgivable crimes. You are, of course, aware of this, are you not?"

Shepard nodded. She vaguely remembered Garrus ranting incoherently about C-Sec, the Council, evidence and red tape. Something about not being able to apprehend a criminal without a significant amount of evidence.

"Excellent. The allegations of a single victim against them can hardly be considered 'substantial' evidence," Charon said, shooting an apologetic glance at Lucy, "However, if this facility could be located, and its exact purpose documented, then that should be sufficient. Are you aware of the facility's location?"

"Shepard, you can't give them its-" Miranda started to speak, but was interrupted when an invisible force threw her back against her seat, much like Jacob.

"Her response confirms what I suspected. You are aware of the facility's location," Charon growled, ignoring the choking noises that Miranda was making, "And yet you failed to disclose this information. It does not matter whether you will or you will not. I shall investigate this matter on my own. I suspect Spectre Bau would be more willing to assist. Come, Lucy. Our business here is concluded,"

* * *

A/N:

Don't piss off the calm guy. Chances are, he's probably scarier than the perpetually angry ones when actually ticked off.

Thanks for the reviews, guys!

Guestoman: Turian Hierarchy will probably be unaware of her for a while. It takes an awful long time for information to disseminate through many layers of bureaucracy...

Forsaken139: Yup, Carius. Not sure if dad or bro. If dad, he's missing a load of dad-jokes. If bro, he's not BroShep. BroShep is the best (read: only) bro. Just look at what he does for Tali (paragon BroShep, at least...)

Kaioo: Yeah, Normandy is definitely not an option for Lucy. If just seeing the emblem is enough to set her off, imagine what happens if she's on a ship full of actual Cerberus associates...and their emblems are everywhere. That being said, Shepard is unlikely to go without help. Not completely, at any rate.

Next up: Gathering evidence. The best part of any investigation.


	9. 09 - The First Strike

Cruel Nemesis demands not precious gold,  
Nor lustrous silver, worth less than sharp steel;  
Of foes she demands flesh, ere it grows cold,  
And a pint of thick blood, fresh from a kill.

For vengeance, what use is coin lustrous  
When hard and hateful edge its debts reclaim?  
Honour slighted in a way most grievous  
A hill of gold its rage shall never tame.

* * *

Charon was fuming. The evening had been full of pleasant excitement, until Shepard appeared and demanded to talk to Lucy. Two others were with her; the man he recognised as a Cerberus affiliate, though the woman he had never seen before. Had he been slower to respond, Lucy would have torn them all to shreds, and with that, any hope of integrating her into the Carius family and the Hierarchy.

He felt a hand on his arm. "...Is something wrong?" Lucy asked. She appeared to be genuinely concerned for him, which soothed his anger somewhat.

"Cerberus," he muttered, "I did not think that they would be so...persistent. I had hoped that I would have more time to prepare you for what you feel you must do, but Shepard's continual presence tells me that we have very little time,"

"Time? Until what?"

"What they cannot have, they will eliminate. That is their way," replied Charon grimly, "The Citadel is no longer safe for you, or for myself,"

"I can kill them," Lucy said quietly.

Charon squeezed her arm gently. "How many can you kill before you are exhausted? Thirty? Forty? Maybe a hundred? No, we do not know how many agents they have. On our own, we are too weak to eliminate them. Like I said earlier, we need evidence to finally mark them as a high-priority enemy of the state, and only then can we begin to fight them in any meaningful way,"

"So how do we do that?" asked Lucy, exasperation creeping into her voice.

"I have a favour that I can call in. But first things first, we will need to head to the Citadel Embassies,"

"No need for that. I heard everything," a voice spoke from behind them, almost too quickly to be understood. Both Charon and Lucy spun around, to meet the eyes of a dark green salarian with a black-and-gold armour suit.

"Spectre Jondum Bau. How did you know we were here?"

"Public timetables and elementary deduction," he said curtly, to the point. Nodding to both Lucy and Charon, he then said, "I will explain more. This is not the right time nor place for this. Come with me to the Spectre office,"

Lucy shot Charon a questioning look, to which Charon nodded his approval. "Very well. I assume that you have a shuttle available?"

"Yes. Always have a shuttle when travelling in the Citadel," replied the Spectre, who tipped his head to one side. "Question suggests that you do not. A shuttle is advisable in any line of work. It is a very useful purchase,"

"Well, I cannot always rely on my father to provide more credits...and C-Sec does not pay enough for luxuries," grumbled the turian.

* * *

"Spectre identity confirmed. Welcome, Spectre Bau," a cool mechanical voice spoke, as the triple-locked door of the Spectre office slid open.

"Come inside before it closes," Jondum spoke quickly, waving them inside.

Lucy unsure what to think of this 'Spectre Office'. The wall of monitors on her left reminded her far too much of the laboratories that she had spent so much time in, and the darkness of the entire place was no comfort either. It was a complete contrast to the clean, sterile whiteness of the rest of the Citadel Embassy.

"What is a Spectre anyway?" Lucy asked, looking suspiciously at a surveillance camera in the corner. There was far too much security in here to be a simple office.

"Spectres are the elite agents of the Citadel Council," answered Charon, "A short informal name for Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. And people who do not answer to any law except the word of the Council,"

"We try to stay within the law if possible. Or at least, I do. I can't say as much for a few _other_ agents," Jondum added, with a bit more venom on the last few words, "I have been investigating the case of a master thief lately, but I think this more public appearance of Cerberus takes priority. A few missing valuables is nowhere near as important as quelling an insurgency or a coup before it even starts. Now, I have only rumours to go by, and I'd like to have a bit more information before I attempt anything,"

"Very well. Ask," Charon said. Turning to Lucy, he whispered, "You can trust Spectre Bau. He and my father have...an understanding,"

"An informal alliance, of sorts," corrected Jondum. He was now standing on the podium in the centre of the room, with a galaxy map holographically projected in front of him. "Right. Come here, please,"

It was the first time Lucy had ever seen a galaxy map, and she was helplessly confused by what she was seeing. What were all these lines, circles and dots doing, hovering over what looked like a spiral of sparkling white spots? What was she even looking at?

"Let's start from the beginning. I'd like her full legal name. Judging by the identical markings on your faces, I would think that she is not with the Alliance, am I correct?" Jondum asked briskly, typing into the console in front of him.

"Lucia Carius, as it should appear on the Hierarchy registry. Or Lucy, as she prefers to be called," answered Charon. For a brief moment, he stopped as he thought about what Jondum had said. "You do not seem to be too surprised by the colony markings,"

"Colony markings on asari are rare, but not unheard of. I thought it would be similar if a human were to get them. Right, there are the records, now the new information...done. Now, I know that there has been two incidents involving her and Cerberus on the Citadel so far. Both of them with Spectre Shepard involved, seemingly acting on behalf of Cerberus,"

"That would be correct, Spectre Bau,"

"Jondum will do. Excessive formality unnecessary, slows down work. Now, despite the records written down by Citadel Flight Control, I am well aware that Lucy has arrived on a vessel containing a dead person,"

"Kouta," Lucy whispered, clenching her fists. "His name was Kouta,"

"Kouta Kanagawa," Charon said, confirming what Lucy had said. Jondum looked at the two, and then continued to type.

"Lucy's reaction suggests deep emotional attachment prior to bereavement. For what it's worth, I'm sorry," spoke Jondum, with as much emotion as a salarian could muster. Which was to say, not very much at all. "Considering that the surveillance videos showed only a single trail of blood leading up the cargo ramp, all evidence points to the only occupant of the vessel carrying the body somewhere inside the vessel. Is this correct, Miss Lucy?"

"That's...correct," replied Lucy, still hard-pressed to process what Jondum was saying.

"In that case, the events that you have described to Shepard-"

"Wait, how did you know what I said to her?" she asked, dumbfounded.

Jondum offered a lopsided smile to her. "Let's say that nowhere in the Citadel is truly free of surveillance devices. Except in people's homes, of course. At least, most of them. As I was saying, however, the events that you have described to Shepard cannot be considered evidence in itself. Your reaction to Cerberus suggests that these events are likely true, as a result of extensive psychological damage. If you had been falsifying your version of events, your reaction would have been less...extreme. I am therefore inclined to believe that the experiments you described were true, and therefore..."

"The laboratories. Scientists must keep records, and it would take some time to remove all of the equipment and evidence," Charon completed, realising where Jondum was leading them.

The salarian smiled broadly at the turian lieutenant in response. "I see that you are brighter than most C-Sec officers. Yes, this is correct. Where experiments have been performed, there must be a laboratory. Either a field one, or a fixed one. Considering the state of Mr. Kanagawa's body according to the classified coroner's report which I have acquired, I am inclined to assume that this is a fixed facility that we are speaking of. A field facility could ill afford to have a large-calibre anti-vehicle emplacement of any sort,"

"The laboratory was a large building," Lucy quietly added, leaning against a nearby wall. She could see it now; the dry, cold wasteland outside the laboratory when she left. Desolate and featureless, covered in what looked like enormous craters. "Covered in a blue bubble. Even the landing pad was covered in it. It was half inside a mountain or a cliff,"

"A fixed facility, as I had assumed," Jondum said. Humming, he typed in a few more words; the galaxy map flickered in response, and a large number of dots vanished. "Blue bubble likely indicates a fixed mass effect field generator. Considering that the landing pad is covered as well, this facility must be either on a planet with either a hostile or absent atmosphere, or gravitational extremes to require either mass magnification or mass reduction. This removes many garden worlds from our search,"

"Is it not possible to simply search the flight computer on the ship to extract its previous destinations?" Charon groaned. As much as he liked the salarian, he had a habit of overcomplicating problems.

"That...is not a bad idea," Jondum said, nodding. "Assuming that you have access to it?"

"Yes, yes I do," sighed Charon, "Impounded in Zakera Ward, bay twenty. It is a white _Virgo_ -class freighter, without any distinguishing features. Furthest to the end of the bay from the entry door,"

"Excellent. Thank you for the information. Let's see...ah. There it is. I'll try accessing the ship remotely...wait, rejected? Well, we cannot have that, can we?"

Before Charon could protest, the salarian had already launched into his suite of hacking tools. "Hmm...standard bypasses are rejected. Spoofing...failed. Brute force? No, that wouldn't work. Ah, a backdoor! And...we're in. Retrieving flight data,"

"Spirits. And here I thought that VI was difficult to overcome," Charon sighed, his shoulders slumping. "A little more than five seconds, and you have managed to break in,"

"Your reaction suggests that you installed it," Jondum responded, grinning, "It's not a bad security feature. Without specialised software, it would be very difficult to break indeed,"

"And I would have to spend a fortune to obtain one that could not be hacked?"

"No. I really doubt that anything available on the market would resist the tools we've made in Special Tactics and Recon. In any case, I have the location of the laboratory. Come and have a look,"

As the salarian punched in one last keystroke, a vast number of white dots vanished from the holographic map. Only a single red dot remained, floating near the central ring of the galactic map.

"Etamis, in the Hawking Eta cluster," he announced, pointing at the red dot. "Slightly over three times the artificial gravity of the Citadel. Atmosphere greatly depleted; both of these combined indicate that the bubble that Lucy saw was both an atmospheric containment and a mass reduction field,"

"Excellent. Should we forward this information to a member of the Council that we could trust?" asked Charon. A part of him wondered whether or not this was too slow; but even that question was quickly answered by Jondum, who shook his head vigorously.

"Negative. I know for sure that some of the Council's communication has been tampered with by unknown parties, I believe that we need to secure the lab before attempting anything else," Jondum muttered, cradling his chin in thought. "Should obtain help from Spectre Crixus and Spectre Alecta. They can assist with this mission, if they are not busy,"

"And how would we get there?" Lucy asked, crossing her arms, "I can't fly Kouta's ship. I only got here because he told it to fly somewhere. Which happened to be here,"

"I could requisition a Citadel Defense Fleet frigate or patrol ship. That should be sufficient," the salarian concluded, shutting down the terminal, "I believe there is a change of shifts in less than an hour. Arm yourselves with whatever you need, and meet me on Presidium docking bay D-24 in fifteen minutes. I will lodge an emergency request for a small CDF vessel and have it stop there on a change of crew,"

"Is it possible to do that so quickly?" Charon asked, mandibles splayed out in confusion. C-Sec normally took _hours_ to even get any sort of requisition form fulfilled, and that was in emergencies!

"Positive," Jondum firmly stated, activating his omni-tool and rapidly typing a message into it. "Spectre authorisation works on almost all arms of the government. And...we have one. Hierarchy patrol ship _Indomitable_ , instructed to dock in bay D-24 of the Presidium Ring,"

Lucy stood up straight, no longer leaning against the wall. Here was another alien; not human, not related to her. Not even related to Charon, but was just...likely just a friend. And yet, he was doing more to help than either she or Charon could have asked for. Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, "Why?"

"Hmm?" the salarian Spectre asked, raising a brow ridge. Lucy flinched as she realised that she had thought out loud, blushing a brilliant crimson.

"You don't know me, and I don't know you," she said, her shoulders slumping, "Why are you helping me?"

"A few reasons. Or several," he mused, "I'm helping Charon because he's helped me out a few times with searching through criminal records for evidence. Putting enough dirt on Cerberus might finally get the Council to act. That's another reason. But really, does someone need to have a reason to do the right thing?"

The salarian Spectre flashed her a brief smile before he continued doing his work, seamlessly shifting between moods rather quickly. Lucy was left completely mystified by the salarian, unable to decide whether he was brilliant, idealistic or insane. Or perhaps all of them.

* * *

"Spectre," rumbled the turian pilot of the _Indomitable_ , nodding to acknowledge the salarian to his right.

"Pilot. I take it that we are at our destination?"

"Affirmative, sir. We are currently in orbit of Etamis,"

Jondum nodded. "Take us to the coordinates that I had forwarded as planned. Keep external video feeds online and recording,"

"Copy that. Descending into atmosphere," the pilot said. Activating the microphone on the centre of the cockpit console, he hollered, "All hands, brace for atmospheric re-entry. I repeat, all hands, brace for atmospheric re-entry!"

The small ship shook rather violently as it entered the strong gravity well of the super-dense planet. Lights flickered as the vessel's element zero core surged with additional energy, both to keep the ship aloft and to generate an artificial gravity field inside the ship itself. The pilot grimaced as he drew closer and closer to the post-garden world below, pock-marked by craters from orbital bombardment. Yet as they drew closer to the listed co-ordinates, he saw nothing but the same dull brownish-grey craters and cliffs that made up the planet's surface.

"There's nothing here, sir," the pilot muttered, turning to face Jondum.

"Nonsense. Use active sensor scans. Look for gravitational anomalies, instead of using simple radio emissions scans," Jondum sighed, "We are looking for a building that's covered in a mass effect field. There should be a gravitational disturbance,"

"Copy that. Sending instructions to the engineers,"

"Thank you, pilot. Once you have confirmation of our target, please land there. Raise kinetic barriers and prepare gun pods. We don't know what sort of welcome we'll receive. I'll head down to the airlock now,"

He did not have to travel very far; every turian-designed ship had its primary airlock next to the cockpit, a feature that drew both criticism and praise. For now, however, he had to admit that it was useful. Relaying information to both a ground crew and the pilot simultaneously had its advantages.

"A pity that neither Crixus nor Alecta can assist us," Charon commented.

"Yes, indeed. We could have used more people on the ground. But why don't we take a few of the crew with us?"

Charon glanced over to the pink-haired woman nearest the airlock door, leaning against the wall. She was now checking – and re-checking – the heatsinks, her pistols, her gear – anything within her reach that she might use. And every time one of the crew walked past the airlock, her head would snap upright, glaring in the direction of the sound. If Jondum saw correctly, her hand twitched over the pistol's grip every single time she did so.

"Lucy distrusts them," spoke Charon, "I had to move her here, as it is the location with the fewest crew in one particular area. The more crew there are, the more agitated she becomes,"

"I will pretend I didn't hear that," she snarled, holstering her pistol.

"It is the truth," he said, shrugging.

"Alright. That's enough, you two," Jondum interrupted. The ship was rapidly descending, indicating that the engineers must have found the laboratory. "We are currently approaching the Cerberus base. We don't know what to expect, so stay together, and cover each other. This entire mountain range appears to be strongly magnetic, and disrupts any attempt at performing a deep scan of the compound,"

"We are entering without any intel?" Charon asked, to which the Spectre nodded.

"Correct. We have no intel about the facility's layout, personnel or any defenses that could be present. Our objectives are to acquire any research data that may be stored, and to eliminate or capture all personnel on site,"

"Or capture?" growled Lucy, "I want to kill them all. Every last one of them,"

"Capturing them alive may yield additional intel. I have yet to interrogate a Cerberus agent myself, and we're sorely lacking information on them," Jondum said firmly. "It's almost like they're made entirely of smoke and mirrors,"

"Fine. I guess you've taken me this far already. I'll try to keep some alive,"

The small ship shuddered again, hovering in place. A multitude of pinging noises echoed from the outside, audible over the loud humming of the straining drive core. "We're taking small arms fire from inside the facility. Landing zone is hot; we'll provide some cover fire from the gun pods as you disembark," the pilot shouted over the noise, "Opening airlock in ten seconds!"

"Copy that," Charon shouted back, lifting his light machine gun and pointing it at the door. The other two followed suit, though Jondum flickered out of sight as he activated his suit's stealth field.

"Where can I get one of those?" Lucy grumbled, shaking her head.

As soon as the airlock flew open, they were immediately set upon by a veritable barrage of high-velocity slugs. The ship, small as it was, was still far too large to be affected by small arms fire; the rounds simply vaporised against its kinetic barriers, causing little more than ripples against the blue bubble encasing the vessel.

"Weapons hot! Go, go, go!" shouted Charon, roaring as he dashed out of the airlock and into the artificial gravity bubble outside. The ship's external gun pods whined, releasing a torrent of high-velocity slugs into the facility's entryway. Several Cerberus troopers were instantly shredded, while others were forced to hide behind whatever cover they could find. With the troopers temporarily silenced, Charon sprinted towards a parked Cerberus transport, taking cover behind a folded wing. The telltale shimmer of a cloaking field he could see beside the reinforced blast doors leading into the facility.

"In position," Jondum said through their comm-link. The salarian Spectre fired two high-powered shots from his sniper rifle, shattering two skulls before the Cerberus troopers even noticed that he was there. If they even noticed him at all; not a single return shot came back to his position.

It was then that Charon realised that the Cerberus troopers were firing at neither himself, nor Jondum. And even the most idiotic of people would realise that firing small arms at an armoured, shielded ship was a pointless exercise. So they had to be firing at-

"Lucy!" he shouted, turning around frantically to see what the pink-haired girl was doing.

She was standing in the middle of the landing pad, slowly walking forward. Charon was certain that the kinetic barriers on her armour hadn't even flashed once; yet every shot that was fired directly at her seemed to veer away, hitting everything except their target.

For some reason, the troopers appeared to be _panicking_. They seemed to be walking further and further inside, while continuing to unload as many bullets as their guns could fire before overheating. Lucy was getting closer and closer, now almost inside the compound.

"Give her covering fire," Charon barked into the comm-link. Jondum nodded and vanished from sight, though the loud blasts of his sniper rifle assured him that the Spectre was complying. Even when they had broken cover and stealth, their enemies _still_ focused on the girl. What were they so terrified of?

It was only after one of the troopers tripped and fell that he realised the reason.

The human, seized by fear, could only scramble away with his hands, shrinking away from her as best as he could. He raised his hands, whimpering, "I—I didn't mean- Don't hurt-"

He never had the chance to finish what he was saying, as a sickening squelch rang through the corridor. Where there was a human in full armour, there was now a reddish-brown smear on the ground and fragments of white ceramic. Shards of bone and bits of flesh flew through the air, splattering the walls and floor behind the corpse.

"Man down!" one of them screamed, loading another heatsink into his shotgun. He continued to fire before a hail of shattered ribs and ceramic shards sailed through the air, shredding his helmet's faceplate. Momentarily blinded, he stumbled backwards while desperately trying to remove the bits of gore from his sight. By the time he had cleared his vision, he had noticed that his fellows were no longer at his side, but a good distance behind him.

And Lucy was directly in front of him, glaring down with pitiless eyes.

"A quick death is too good for you," she snarled. Charon watched in horror as the man was lifted into the air by her vectors, his limbs stretched in all directions while he screamed loudly in agony. A series of loud pops and cracks came from his direction; Charon swore that neither a human's arms nor legs were supposed to move that far backwards. Or have so many joints. The man was unceremoniously tossed out of the facility, where he fell in a heap on the landing pad, out cold.

"Come. Entertain me," mocked Lucy, walking towards the remaining troopers. There were now fewer than a dozen of them left, cowering in front of the sealed blast doors at the end of the corridor. A trail of bloody hand prints marked the floor as she walked ever closer to them, a sadistic grin on her face.

A few had thrown down their weapons, raising their trembling hands up in a feeble attempt to placate her. The others that had not done so soon found their weapons on the ground – along with their severed arms and hands.

"Lucy, that is enough!" Charon shouted. The woman turned to face him and frowned.

"They don't deserve to live," she spat. Her eyes were cold and unfeeling; the eyes of someone who had seen too much blood and pain. "Them...all of them. They need to die,"

"We need them. Alive,"

"Alive?" she shrieked, seething with rage. Four heads splattered in quick succession, and the remaining troopers shrunk back in fear. "Alive? There were many others like myself in this facility. These pieces of filth-" Lucy pointed a finger at the nearest one, "-captured them and tortured them for their own purposes. And when they could no longer restrain us, what did they do? They slaughtered us like animals. And you ask me to keep them alive? I've already kept one alive back there, and you want more?"

"I would suggest that you listen to Charon, Lucy," Jondum added in a whisper, decloaking beside her, "Dead men tell no tales. They might be able to tell us about where they have come from, and where other Cerberus facilities might be. You cannot say that the one you captured knows anything. But between all of them, we might be able to get something,"

She stayed silent. Her eyes flicked rapidly from a worried Charon, the cowering troopers, and then Jondum who wore a mask of complete indifference. Then finally, with an angry growl, she relented. "Fine, then! Get them out of my sight, before I change my mind,"

"That was a wise decision," Charon spoke, walking to her side. His gun was still trained on them as he kicked their weapons to the wall. A few turian soldiers had disembarked from their ship, responding to Jondum's call for the surrendering soldiers to be arrested.

"Don't. Just...don't," Lucy sniffed, walking away. Quietly, she said, "You have no idea how hard it is for me to not kill them. If the crew can't get rid of them any quicker, then let's keep moving forward so I won't have to see them,"

"Very well. Let us continue,"

* * *

That was a statement that was perhaps easier said than done. Jondum was entirely baffled by the design of the blast door in front of him. There was neither a haptic interface, nor a physical lock-and-key as would be expected of a non-computerised door. A pair of metal rams kept the doors closed, which even Lucy's vectors could only slightly dent. Slashing the door with her vectors failed to work entirely, only barely scratching the surface.

"No luck," Charon muttered, shutting down his omni-blade, "I cannot even make a scratch in this metal. Jondum, are you certain that there is no way to open this?"

"Positive," the salarian replied, still scanning the walls, "It appears that the controls are on the other side, from somewhere deeper in the facility. I don't think it's possible for us to breach this with what we've got,"

Lucy frowned. There was still something down there, she was certain. Something still alive. She had felt this way before, inside the facility, when she was being held by Cerberus. The feeling was stronger then...somehow closer, somehow stronger. Somehow more vibrant, as though there were more of...whatever it was.

More of others like her.

The very thought of the same experiments being done upon others set her mind ablaze with fury. That gate in front of her was the only obstacle in front of her. And if the others will not take it down, she will.

Roaring in rage, she lashed out with all of her vectors. She could hear the metal creaking and groaning under her assault, many dents quite literally punched into the solid steel door. She didn't care if the damn door didn't budge. She wanted to rip into something, to tear it to pieces. If the Cerberus troopers were off limits, then this would do well enough. A chunk of steel flew over her head as a vector latched on to it and pulled as hard as it could. Others followed suit, ripped from exposed corners.

 _Good. Feel your anger. Feel your hate. It makes you stronger._

"Am I seeing things?" she faintly heard Jondum speak. Or was it Charon? It didn't matter much to her at this point. She could see the red emergency lights of the corridor behind through cracks in the steel door in front of her. And she would be damned if some simple door would stop her.

With an almighty scream, she latched onto the cracks on one door with her vectors and pulled. Hardened steel rails groaned and snapped as the door was pulled with incredible force; the bars holding the pair together shattered in their slots, and even a chunk of the reinforced concrete walls crumbled when the blast door shot free from its place.

A profound sense of satisfaction washed over her when she saw the mangled door land with a loud clang and screech down the hallway in a shower of sparks, only stopping when it crushed a corpse. How dare these insects even think that something so pathetic would slow her down?

"Spirits. I cannot believe what I have just seen," Charon gasped.

Lucy swayed unsteadily on her feet, panting. The exertion was enough to leave her with a pounding headache, but it was certainly nothing that she could not handle on her own.

"Hands off," she growled, knocking away Charon's hand as he tried to steady her. "I can still stand, and I can still walk,"

"Alright, I'll take point. Take it slowly," Jondum said, motioning for Charon to move away from the diclonius. As he moved further into the corridor, his omni-tool emitted a faint ticking noise.

"I hope that is not what I think it is," growled the turian. Jondum, however, nodded grimly.

"Radiation. Low levels, safe enough for anyone in an armoured combat suit with shielding. Those without would be fine if they stayed for less than an hour. But this is indicative of a dirty nuclear bomb, or an overzealous neutron purge," confirmed the salarian.

"That would kill everything inside the facility. Including their own personnel,"

"There's still something alive in there," Lucy said flatly. "Somebody...like me. Somebody that is still held here,"

The salarian Spectre looked at her curiously. "These purges are used in clandestine biological research facilities in case of an outbreak. There hasn't been a single case where anything survived a neutron purge, properly done; and judging by the residual radiation, it has succeeded, if a little dirty. How do you know this?"

"I can sense her," she said. Pausing for a brief moment, she continued, "Or them. The pull is faint, but there's certainly someone alive,"

"You can sense people?" asked Charon. That ability would be useful for checking around corners.

Lucy shook her head in reply. "Only my own kind. I've...I've lived here for so long that I'd almost forgotten what it felt like, on its own. If she's here, then...let's go find her. Or them. I'll need to see them to...decide,"

Charon activated the flashlight underneath his machinegun as the three walked down further into the facility. With power in the rest of the base seemingly knocked out, there was only the dull red glow of emergency lighting to go by. The ticking on Jondum's omni-tool continued with every step, a constant reminder that whatever Cerberus had used had truly penetrated every corner of the base.

"How big is this facility?" Charon asked Lucy. They had come across the central staircase; an enormous structure reaching down for many floors. Even with the flashlight, Charon could not see the bottom of the structure.

Lucy shrugged in response. "I don't see anything when I'm not being used for one of their experiments. How would I know?"

The faint coppery scent that the three had smelled at the top of the staircase had grown far stronger by the time they had wandered down the first three landings. Both Charon and Jondum grimaced as they realised that there was blood somewhere close – and by the intensity of its assault on their noses, there was a _lot_ of it. And where there was blood, there were likely bodies. Or fragments of bodies, given what Lucy had done to the ones above.

"It's still weak, but I can definitely sense her presence now," Lucy muttered, looking at a broken-down door. A faint blood splatter was visible on the frame, "It doesn't feel like she's above me, or below me. She must be through here,"

"Copy that. I'll take point," replied Charon, kicking down what remained of the door. He immediately regretted the decision as he heard a loud squishing noise, and a long piece of intestine fell onto his boot from the door frame's top.

"I think we're going to need body bags. Many body bags," Jondum said in a muffled voice, clamping a hand to his nose. Charon shone his flashlight around the hallway beyond the door, trying his hardest to ignore the almost overpowering stench of blood and excrement. Several humans in white lab coats had been torn apart at their waists; others, with guns and in combat armour, lay slumped against the walls, their limbs scattered in many pieces on the floor. As far as the turian could see, there was not a single inch of the hallway that was not painted in a sticky blackish-red residue.

"As much as I hate to say it, I think that whatever Lucy is sensing is on the other end of this corridor," Charon growled, shining his torch at a sealed blast door on the other side. A familiar green haptic interface hovering above its middle they could see, which drew a relieved nod from the turian. "And it is neither locked nor sealed. Fortunately for us."

"And...is that...?" Jondum spoke, pointing at an oddly-pale shape in a puddle of blood. Charon shone his light at what the Spectre pointed at and immediately averted his eyes.

"Yes," Lucy said sadly, walking over to a naked female body on the floor.

She crouched over the body and turned it over, running her fingers over the steel mask clamped to her face. Finding no way to release the mask, Lucy simply shattered it with her vectors, revealing a pale, heart-shaped face behind it, framed by a veritable curtain of violet curls. The horns poking through her hair marked her as another diclonius, slain during their attempt to escape captivity. It was strange, how peaceful she looked in death. Her eyes closed, her lips slightly upturned in a slight smile. Did she welcome death, or did she, perhaps, hope that an escape was in her sights? Before Cerberus had used whatever foul weapon that they had as a last resort?

"I don't know you," Lucy whispered, "But I will kill them all. For me. For you. And for every other one that they killed here,"

"Let us keep moving," Charon said, carefully stepping around the minefield of body parts and corpses.

Upon reaching the door, Charon grimaced. A datapad was stuck to the side of the frame, containing data about the subject. "I cannot believe what I am seeing. A subject that is only six years of age? Just how early do they extract their targets?" he growled angrily. "Nana. Six years. Spirits, perhaps I should just order the captured agents ejected into space from now on,"

"Too early, all of them," Lucy added tersely. Her face bore a tense expression as she approached the door. "I think that you two should stay behind me for this one. I don't know how she's going to react. I'm sensing a lot of fear from her,"

Jondum nodded to Charon. Fear was prone to cause adults of any species to act erratically; and children, regardless of species, were even more susceptible to overreacting to it.

"I'll open the door when you're ready," Jondum said. When Lucy nodded, he swiped his arm over the haptic interface, and the door slid open.

Inside was a cavernous room. Its walls were lined with a metallic grid, with dull black tiles much unlike any other that they had seen so far. A giant steel capsule was suspended by chains and cables from the ceiling in the centre of the room; several barrier projectors were arranged in circles beneath, still faintly glowing thanks to the residual charge on their element zero loads.

"She's inside that capsule," Lucy said, walking up to it. "Is there any way of opening it?"

"Power seems to be out for lighting, but it seems to be working for the door," Jondum replied, "But it works for the doors, and the atmospheric containment fields. With any luck, I should be able to,"

"Then let us have that capsule open," growled Charon.

A desk and several terminals stood beside the room's entryway. Jondum approached, tapping on the terminal to bring it online. He chuckled when the device requested identification; a simple wave of his omni-tool brought the Spectre's hacking tools to bear on the security programs, bypassing it within seconds.

"Well, that explains why she's alive," he said, giving a low whistle. "That containment chamber that she's in has received an order to open, but its actuators have failed. A steel shell that thick, combined with the barriers on the outside, would have stopped enough of the radiation from killing her. Or even harming her at all,"

"That is certainly interesting, but is it still possible to open it?"

"I'll reroute additional power into the actuators. It should get it open, but be ready for anything,"

After punching in a few commands, the alarm klaxons in the room blared loudly. "Unsealing cell: Subject 7. All personnel, please stand by," a deep mechanical voice stated through the room's announcement system.

A loud, grinding screech came from the capsule as it started to split apart slowly, the lower half unfolding like a mechanical mockery of a flower. The upper half rose higher into the air, revealing a young female contained inside, suspended by cables wrapped around various points on her body. Charon tilted his head in confusion as he saw the girl; despite his lack of knowledge about what juvenile humans looked like, he was certain that humans reached maturity at least sixteen years after birth.

"A six year old human should not be that...developed, should they?" he spoke in wonder, looking at the slender frame of the girl, who was only a head shorter than Lucy. And Lucy was already tall, being only barely shorter than he was.

Lucy frowned as she approached, shattering the helmet with her vectors. The girl's purple hair tumbled out in thick sheets, perhaps never having been cut in her lifetime. She looked with fear at Lucy, struggling feebly against her bonds to no avail.

"Can you hear me? Can you understand me?" Lucy called out to the girl. "I'm here to get you out of here,"

"Nana doesn't know you," wailed the girl, "Nana is scared! Nana wants daddy!"

"If there is a 'daddy' in this damned facility, then he's already dead," Lucy growled, wishing that the girl would just shut up. The high-pitched wailing was truly grating on her ears. "They didn't care about us any more than they did for the dust on their boots. If anyone even tried to look like they cared about you, it's only to get you to help them,"

"No...that can't be right..." Nana cried, "You're lying! Daddy was nice to Nana if Nana was good!"

"Being good to one of _them_? And _them_ being nice?" snorted Lucy in disbelief. This girl had been well and truly brainwashed.

"You...don't know daddy. Why are you so mean to them? I...I don't want to hear you any more!"

To Lucy's shock, two vectors shot out of the girl's back, streaking straight towards her neck. Just as they were about to strike, Lucy deflected them with two of her own, batting them aside just in time.

 _You are her queen. She is your lesser. Punish her for her insolence. Show her you are superior!_

"That won't happen," Lucy snarled, marching over to Nana. The younger diclonius struggled in her bindings, fearful of what the elder one could do. With both of her vectors restrained, Nana could only look with wide eyes at the other two of Lucy's vectors, which hovered just above her ribs. They moved closer, almost touching her, and she closed her eyes, shivering in fright.

Yet Lucy merely cut the white bindings on her, causing the urine-soaked wrappings to fall to the ground. She wrinkled her nose at the putrid smell of unwashed and soiled unspeakables, but her job was not yet complete. With one vector supporting the girl's waist, she slashed every cable suspending Nana with the other, causing the girl to fall to the ground with a yelp.

"I haven't killed you. And I haven't even tried to hurt you," Lucy coldly said, leaning down so close to Nana's face that their noses were touching, "I could, but I won't. You aren't the enemy, and you should know that I'm not yours. So just shut up and listen. We're here to help you. But I can only help you if you're not going to attack me,"

Lucy stepped back, releasing the girl's vectors, eyeing them as they receded back into her body. Nana then slumped back in resignation, softly crying. Noticing that Lucy offered her a hand, she took it. "Nana is...starving," the girl whispered hoarsely, struggling to her feet with Lucy's help. "And...thirsty,"

"After a number of days of being restrained without food or drink? That would be an understatement," Charon commented, approaching the two. The Spectre followed closely after, unwrapping an emergency ration from his back pocket and a small water canteen. "Jondum. I believe the mission is a success. Given the state of the facility, I highly doubt that there are any survivors or hostiles further in. Information recovery can be done at our leisure. Let us return to the ship,"

* * *

A/N:

Somewhere, in a galaxy far, far away, I think a certain emperor would like to have a new apprentice...

Nana's personality is slightly altered for the purposes of this story. Without Kurama ordering Nana to find Lucy, and without her getting dismembered by Lucy, it would be rather difficult to explain why Nana has an intense hatred of Lucy.

There is also a change in the rating of this story (T - M). The typical gore and blood expected of Elfen Lied cannot be done with just a T rating; and if you've seen Elfen Lied, honestly, you probably don't even care about the rating any more. :P

As always, reviews are appreciated. Thanks for reading!


	10. 10 - Ignorance is Bliss

Wisdom oft is sharper than sharpest blade,  
Stronger than the strongest of shining shields;  
What can strike that which into shadows fade  
As swiftly as water seeps into fields?

Yet for all its glorious, wondrous gifts,  
Wisdom oft wounds most grievous its wielder;  
What does one know when reality shifts  
And their own world is torn asunder?

* * *

It appeared that Nana was in a far worse condition than any of them had thought. Between malnutrition and dangerously high levels of dehydration, she was incapable of walking. Jondum had realised this when he had tried to support her with one arm and a shoulder, only to fall over when she collapsed under her own weight.

With Lucy's rage still only barely appeased by the destruction of the base and the capture of its staff, Charon thought that perhaps carrying the girl with Lucy's vectors was ill advised. After all, something that could demolish a sealed blast door likely resistant to all but the heaviest anti-vehicle weaponry could hardly be trusted with such a delicate job. Especially when its wielder was still in a rather foul mood.

"Hello," he spoke to Nana, only for her to look at him blankly. He slapped himself, forgetting that he was speaking in turian, while the girl obviously would not have an omni-tool synced to her nervous system. Turning to Jondum, he said, "Spectre Bau, could we retrieve an omni-tool from one of the bodies outside? If I am to assist her, then I must be able to speak to her,"

"Excellent idea. I will do that now," the salarian spoke, dashing back into the corridor outside. Charon crouched down in the meantime, so as to not to tower over Nana. Taking the protein bar that Jondum had handed to him earlier, he offered it to the girl. Though military rations could hardly be described as delicious – particularly Union ones, if curious human visitors could be trusted – Nana leant forward, sniffing at the greyish-brown bar hungrily.

"Eat," he spoke, trying his best to remember how the humans of C-Sec spoke the word. It must have been at least understandable, as the girl nodded and took the food gingerly from his hands. Now that she was devouring the bar ravenously, he unscrewed the cap on the canteen and placed it on the floor in front of her. "Water, after you are finished,"

While Nana was finishing her meal, Charon looked to the centre of the room. Lucy was standing there, silently staring at the remains of Nana's bindings. There was a strange expression on her face that he had not seen before. Was it sorrow, or regret? Or perhaps a mixture of both, considering the soft sniffs that he could hear coming from her. With Jondum returning from the corridor beyond the room, however, he had to focus on the task at hand.

"Recovered one in reasonable condition. Will need decontamination later on the ship, but it works," Jondum said, holding up a blood-spattered omni-tool. Grimacing, Charon picked it up and showed it to the girl. He held up his wrist, tapped on the omni-tool, and then pointed to one on his own wrist. Then, he pointed to her hand.

Thankfully, the girl nodded and held up her arm, allowing Charon to easily attach the omni-tool. He smiled broadly and nodded back to her; at least she was far more docile than Lucy was.

"Nod if you can understand what I am saying," he spoke to her, switching back to turian. Nana smiled and nodded vigorously in response. "Good. We are going to take you out of this facility and find you some proper medical care. I take it that you cannot walk?"

"No. Nana can't walk," she replied sadly, shifting her legs weakly. "Nana hurts all over. Nana numb,"

"I had suspected as much. Very well. I will carry you out of here," Charon sighed, handing his machinegun to Jondum. Stooping over, he placed one arm behind Nana's back and another under her knees. She was so light that he had little trouble standing back up. Even walking was not terribly onerous, despite the awkward gait that he had to adopt. He did note the rather unpleasant smell that seemed to adhere to the girl, however; he would have to wash her later, if she was in this state.

"Lucy, we're done. Let's head back up," Jondum said to the other diclonius, who regarded him with a curt nod. "Actually, you go with Charon. I'll stay down here for a bit longer. I want to see what else they have been doing down here,"

* * *

"Only one survivor?" a crew member asked Charon as they ascended onto the facility's entryway. He nodded grimly, and the crew member knew not to ask any more.

The Cerberus troopers that had surrendered were all handcuffed, lined up along the wall with several armed guards watching over them. Those that had lost their arms or hands were on the landing pad itself, being treated by the ship's medical officer. Each shrank away as Lucy stormed past them, perhaps in fear of losing more limbs or their lives.

"Does it really take this long to put them on the ship?" Lucy snarled, glaring at the nearest one.

"No, ma'am. There are too many of them to be placed in the ship's brig, and we're very short on hands," replied a nearby ensign.

"If that's a problem, then I think I can solve that," she added, looking predatorily at several of them.

"Citadel Conventions prevent us from mistreating prisoners of war. We must treat those who have surrendered in a humane manner," Charon huffed, shifting Nana slightly in his arms, "In any case, we should get Nana some medical attention as soon as we can. Is the medical officer present?"

The ensign nodded and pointed at a dark blue-skinned asari on the landing pad. "Yes, lieutenant. Lieutenant T'Kalis is currently treating the wounded. She should be able to attend to your needs,"

"Thank you, ensign. Notify the helm once Spectre Bau returns. We will need to decide what to do with the prisoners,"

* * *

The asari matron on the landing pad was leaning over a prisoner, applying generous amounts of medi-gel to the stump of a severed arm. She was gently checking her patient's vitals when she noticed that he was whimpering in abject fear; and if her nose was correct, he had voided his bowels. Looking up, she came face-to-face with a pink-haired human – the one that the others called Lucy – and a turian male, who was carrying an almost skeletal purple-haired human without a single shred of clothing on her body.

One that had not been on the ship at the start of the flight. Which could only mean that she was recovered from the facility's depths.

"Can I help you?" T'Kalis spoke to Lieutenant Carius as she stood up. Surely the turian was the one that her patient was terrified of, given the tense history between their two races. Yet she noted that Lucy wore a most venomous expression on her face while she glared at the Cerberus trooper on the ground; one that would rival even the most furious krogan warlord, and she decided to withhold any judgment as to which one was in control.

"Yes. If you would, this young woman that I am carrying has been left without food or water for quite a few days now. Between dehydration and malnutrition, it is likely best that she receives immediate medical treatment,"

"Let me see," the asari hummed, scanning the woman in Lieutenant Carius' arms. "Weak pulse, low blood pressure...low blood sugar, and a...distinct need for hygienic decontamination. Come with me, Lieutenant, and take her to the medical bay,"

The ship, small as it was, did not have much of a medical bay. There was only a single bed in it, and a rather narrow workbench on one side. Squeezing herself into the gap between the bed and the workbench, T'Kalis motioned for Lieutenant Carius to come in. "Place her on the bed. I'll need to take a closer look. There's not really much room in here, so I'll have to ask you to observe from the crew quarters if you really need to,"

"I do not think that would be necessary," Lieutenant Carius spoke. He laid the purple-haired girl down gently on the bed, and stepped out of the cramped medbay, the door sliding shut behind him with a soft hiss.

T'Kalis then turned to her patient on the bed. Offering a soft smile, the doctor asked her. "What's your name, young lady?"

"Papa calls me Nana," replied Nana.

"Nana. It's a nice name. Well, what I'm going to do is give you a wash first, and then I'll run a few tests to see if anything's wrong with you,"

T'Kalis raised an eye ridge when Nana cringed at the mention of the tests. She knew that many disliked visiting doctors – particularly the young – but her reaction was a little extreme. "Don't hurt Nana! Nana hasn't...hasn't done anything bad,"

"You haven't done anything bad," T'Kalis reassured her. She made a mental note to ask either the Spectre or the Lieutenant about Nana's reaction. It was a little too automatic, a little too quick; the signs of some form of psychological damage. The manner in which the girl was speaking definitely indicated an infantile level of mental development; she would have to adjust her manner of care to compensate.

Taking a small basin filled with antiseptic, the doctor lathered it onto the girl's body with a sponge. The doctor was quite familiar with the rather unpleasant scent of urine and excrement, yet the girl absolutely _reeked_ of it. As though she had been sitting in the stuff for a few days at least. Thankfully, the antiseptic was starting to do its work, and the smell was rapidly fading away as she scrubbed away.

"There. Now you're cleaner, Nana," spoke the doctor softly, putting the basin and the now-dirty sponge on the workbench. She ran her omni-tool's diagnostics suite over the girl and frowned. What in the Goddess' name have they been doing to her? Many of her bones had signs of fractures that had healed, incorrectly set. Hairline fractures were everywhere, while larger fractures had barely enough calcification to hold together. Not to mention the severely low levels of nearly all nutrients in the girl's bloodstream... "Goddess. It's a wonder that you're even alive. They really haven't been taking care of you, have they?"

"Nana doesn't understand. Nana gets fed once a day by Papa. Nana gets two meals a day if Nana was good,"

"One meal a day, and two if you were being...rewarded?" repeated the doctor, not quite believing what she was hearing. It did make sense given the available data from her scans, however.

"I don't have anything here to treat you for not having enough food," T'Kalis said apologetically, "It's not normally an issue for soldiers. People everywhere else normally eat three times a day. Biotics usually eat six times, or twice as much on normal meal times, but they're a unique case. You've also got broken bones that haven't healed properly, but they're holding,"

"Nana feels...fine?" the girl whined, pouting. Obviously she was not comfortable with discussing these things, considering how much she was squirming on the bed. Or at least trying to squirm.

Remembering that children usually responded well to sweets, T'Kalis smiled and turned around, searching her drawers. She herself had a sweet tooth; regulations be damned, she will have a sugary treat if she wants to. Finding a box of Thessian crystallised honey balls, she pulled one of them out and held it up, pressing a finger to her lips and winking conspiratorially at Nana.

"Nana, you're a good girl. You've been through a lot, and we really need to get you some proper healthcare. Right now, I don't have the right things to help you, but I need you to not injure yourself any further by moving," said the asari doctor, offering the sphere to Nana, who picked it up gingerly.

The girl rolled it around between her fingers, seemingly confused as to what it was. Seeing that T'Kalis had put an identical ball into her mouth, she mimicked the doctor. Her eyes shot open the moment that her tongue touched the cold sugary treat, and she let out a muffled moan of bliss, relaxing almost immediately.

"Doctor needs you to stay still and sleep until we arrive at the Citadel, since Nana is injured. Can Nana do that for doctor?" crooned T'Kalis, also slightly muffled by the ball in her mouth. Nana nodded gently, and T'Kalis stroked Nana's hair. Her hand, however, caught on two raised growths on the top of her head, spaced quite widely apart.

 _Must be just a genetic anomaly. There are humans with more or less than five toes, or an extra copy of organs,_ the doctor thought to herself. Right now, she was too busy calming the adorable human girl. As developed as the girl appeared to be, her current mental state was definitely triggering the motherly instincts in the asari. It also didn't help that the girl had the cutest smile while she was happy.

"Mmmph. Nana will stay still. Nana will be good,"

"That's a good girl. Once you finish eating that, you can sleep. Doctor will need to talk to nice turian outside first,"

T'Kalis squeezed her way out of the medical bay, waving to Nana as she exited. Lieutenant Carius was standing beside the doorway, stiffly standing by as though expecting something to happen.

"Is something the matter, Lieutenant?" asked the doctor, making sure that the door closed before she spoke.

"I am merely worried about Nana. She has not exactly had the most pleasant of experiences in this facility," Carius replied. "What is the extent of her problems?"

She frowned. While the question itself was nice and direct, it was not exactly one that had a simple answer. "Severe, but not life-threatening. There are hairline fractures on almost every single bone of hers that are barely healing, due to lack of calcification. Blood sugars and almost every single vitamin and mineral are severely depleted. While low blood sugar could be attributed to starvation, I cannot see any other cause for the other measurements other than prolonged malnutrition,"

The turian seemed slightly relieved, but the doctor's frown only deepened. "I have nothing to treat Nana properly with. Normally, soldiers on duty receive proper meals that are certain to support them properly. I've only got some candy to give her a quick shot of sugar. As a doctor, my patient's health is my primary concern; and as you were the one to bring her in, I need to ask. What in the Goddess' name was done to her?"

Lieutenant Carius hesitated for a brief moment, and then shook his head. "There are far too many things to list. And it is not my place to comment on an operation that is led by a Spectre, for it is possible that I may say something that must remain classified,"

 _Turians. Always following the chain of command, no matter where they are..._ T'Kalis grumbled silently to herself. Maybe she would have to ask Spectre Bau himself when he returned. For the time being, however, she had to keep an eye on her patient.

* * *

It had been almost an hour before Jondum returned to the landing pad. His lips were drawn so thinly that one might have mistaken the salarian for having none at all, while his eyes avoided any of the nervous glances that the turian crewmembers had given him.

"Sir, we've finished loading all of the prisoners, except for those that are severely wounded," one of them spoke, "What should we -"

"Return to the ship. All other crew members must also do so," he interrupted the turian curtly, "And let Lieutenant Carius know that I want to meet him outside,"

Unnerved by the salarian's tone, the crewmember nodded and marched back into the ship, followed by his peers. All while muttering about what could have he found that would have changed his mood so abruptly.

"Better that they don't know," Jondum whispered under his breath. He walked on to the landing pad, where Lucy awaited him with her arms crossed.

"It's taken long enough," she growled, "Do you have what you need yet?"

"Mostly," replied the Spectre, shivering. Some things were better unmentioned. Or better yet, unseen. "I need Charon to be present for what I am about to say. It seems that what we've found here – and what you were a part of – is larger than what I had ever expected. If this were ever released in public, the backlash would be unthinkable. Especially against the Alliance,"

"Backlash? For testing weapons on little girls? I think that's well deserved," Lucy snarled, causing Jondum to flinch. As if on cue, Charon appeared on the ship's docking ramp; spotting Lucy and Jondum, he vaulted over the ramp's railing and onto the landing pad.

"Spectre Bau. I suspect that by the way Lucy is reacting, you have found something...unpleasant?" Charon said, causing both of the others to look at him. Jondum nodded, while Lucy continued to glare at the Spectre.

"Genetic modification. Cloning. Organ harvesting," he listed on his fingers, "Restraining minors against their will and without a valid reason,"

Charon gaped at him, while Lucy merely snorted. "Genetic...modification? Organ harvesting?"

"Yes. And abduction of minors identified with genetic mutations which resulted in a new subspecies of humans," he continued darkly, "With complicity of certain arms of the Alliance, if the documents that I retrieved were valid. Or at least some personnel within those arms,"

"Spirits. Why...why would they do this?"

Jondum looked at Lucy, and then back at Charon. He brought up his omni-tool and showed a series of documents, each stamped with an Alliance logo at the top. "Research was intended to provide humanity with a race of supersoldiers, which they hoped would be firmly under their command. Or more likely, just Cerberus' command. My contacts in the STG had reported many cases of unexplained deaths about twenty years ago among the Alliance's colonies in the Skyllian Verge. Nobody thought much of it when the Alliance had declared the cases cold and closed them. After all, there are thousands of murders committed throughout the galaxy every day. A few deaths would just slip under the radar,"

"These reports..." Charon spoke, flicking through the documents, "Every case is at least a double murder. Evisceration, bodies pulverised..."

"And every single time, leaving a horned female infant, with hair and eyes on the red-purple spectrum, in the middle of the carnage. All from a single colony," Jondum finished, glancing at Lucy worriedly, "There were files on each infant as they were retrieved by Alliance servicemen that were Cerberus agents. Yours was among them. In any case, the details on the others are largely unimportant, as the women that they belong to are all deceased. There was a neutron bomb in the bottom of the facility, which eliminated every living creature in it. Except for Nana, but she was fortunate in that her restraints also shielded her from the blast,"

"That would explain the low-level background radiation," added Charon, nodding.

"Yes. However, this means that getting Lucy into safety is even more of a priority. She must be in Palaven as soon as we can, for both her safety and the safety of all Citadel races,"

"What? Why?" demanded Lucy, annoyed that the salarian was not explaining anything at all.

"Lucy..." Jondum said slowly, mulling over what he needed to say, "I mentioned cloning, and organ harvesting, didn't I? Those clones...they were yours. Only six clones were not; they were the clones of Mariko, in cell number thirty-five; and they were apparently intended to hunt you down if you were ever to turn against Cerberus. Your file indicates that you are the only living diclonius that is fertile. Your DNA samples had been rendered unusable by the radiation, and every one of your clones are dead..."

"...And if you were the last one, and they still wanted to continue to research their supersoldier project..." Charon mumbled, deep in thought. His eyes shot wide open as he realised the implications of what Jondum was saying. "That means that you've become a primary target. They need to recover you – or your body – in order to resume this. Either for cloning...or for breeding..."

A strange rumbling sound came from Charon's throat; his eyes were ablaze with unmatched fury. Pulling out his pistol, he motioned for Lucy to come with him towards the nearest prisoner.

"You are aware, as I am, Spectre Bau," he spoke loudly, drawing the attention of the half-dazed Cerberus trooper as well, "Humane treatment of enemy prisoners of war only relates to personnel in service of a legitimate government. This _fine_ fellow in front of us does not fit either category, does he?"

"No. He doesn't," replied the salarian with dread, knowing exactly what is to come next. C-Sec interrogation methods on hardened criminals, particularly in the Lower Wards, were far from wholesome to watch. A giant swamp shark in Sur'kesh would have a far friendlier smile than the one Lucy sported at that moment, and Jondum wheeled about to go back into the ship. Some things were simply better left unseen. "Just remember to clean up after you're done. I'll forward the information that I've recovered to you,"

* * *

"No luck?" Jondum asked Charon, as both Lucy and Charon returned to the ship. Both were spattered with blood from head to toe, courtesy of Lucy's method of coercing information from their prisoners. Charon looked a particularly nauseous shade of ashen green, while Lucy wore the most sadistic smile that the Spectre had ever seen on any person he had ever met.

"No. These are simple mercenaries in Cerberus' employ, with little knowledge about what they are guarding," sighed Charon, sitting down on the bench beside the airlock. "They did not know of anything important. Needless to say, Lucy has...disposed of them,"

"I see. A shame, really. I've interrogated the others in the brig, and I'd hoped that you'd have found something. Their attention to operational security is incredible,"

"What about the Council? I cannot imagine that they would accept the fact that a Spectre has requisitioned a ship very lightly. Have they contacted you for a debriefing yet?"

Jondum tensed slightly, and Charon knew that the response was likely not something that any of them would have liked. "As a matter of fact, yes, they have. Each of the Councillors were...horrified, to say the least, when I disclosed the purpose of the facility that we've discovered. Valern has dispatched a team of forensic scientists to recover any more evidence that I may have failed to uncover, along with a military escort to ensure that their work is not disrupted, while Sparatus assures me that the facility will be destroyed after their investigation is complete,"

"And Cerberus?"

"This is where it becomes tricky," the Spectre mumbled, stroking his chin, "Councillor Anderson was well aware that there might be Cerberus agents, active or otherwise, present inside arms of the Alliance military. He assures me that he is attempting everything that he can to suppress them, but they have been very effective at hiding from any investigations that he has launched. Worse still, he believes that they have infiltrated quite high up the chain of command,"

Lucy frowned deeply. This was not what she wanted to hear, not at all. "Is that Shepard woman included?" she grumbled, hoping that she would have an excuse to tear her apart if the woman decided to chase her again.

"As much as you would think so, the situation is more complicated than that. Shepard seems to be pursuing neither the agenda of the Council nor Cerberus at this time. Councillor Anderson insisted that Shepard is only working with Cerberus to stop the Reapers and Collectors. This seems to be supported by reports of her assisting non-humans in the slums of Omega. And a former STG agent by the name of Mordin Solus, if reports are to be trusted,"

"Helping species other than humans does not fit Cerberus' modus operandi," Charon said thoughtfully. Noticing Lucy's confused expression, he quickly added, "It means that what Commander Shepard is doing is not typically what Cerberus does to achieve their goals. Cerberus typically prefers to...eliminate any non-humans in their way, and recruit humans if they can. This probably means that the Commander is pursuing her own goals, despite wearing their colours,"

"I did hear that Spectre funding for the Commander has been severely cut - and that Cerberus' pockets are deeper than most would think. In any case, this ship's been ordered to return to Palaven immediately. Sparatus said that if you and Nana were the last survivors of that facility's experiments, the two of you are likely very high priority targets for Cerberus. Nana has been granted temporary asylum to allow her to remain in Palaven,"

"That makes sense. I highly doubt that any good turian would ever work for Cerberus willingly," Charon said slowly. Turning to Lucy, however, doubt began to cloud his mind about whether this was truly the best of ideas. He did promise her that they would bring Cerberus down in the name of revenge. One of its many arms had been brought down, yet still it exists. For now, her thirst for vengeance had been sated. But how long would it be until she would demand more blood?

* * *

Palaven. It had seemed like an age since Charon had last been on the sun-scorched planet. The humans had joked that the only things that were not silver on it were the turians, as they were made of steel. As their planetbound transport descended into the atmosphere, he wondered if they knew just how unwittingly accurate their jest was. Nearly everything that moved had a metallic hide or carapace; plants bore leaves of silver and ash-grey; and even the cities were painted in a metallic white paint, only embellished with slight splashes of other colours.

"It's so bright," whispered Lucy, a hand pressed against a side window. Trebia – the star which Palaven orbits – was beginning to rise above the horizon, bathing the arid lands below in a brilliant bluish-white light. She stared in wonder at the cities below, the jagged angular lines of the streets a strange contrast to the orderly avenues of the Citadel.

"You'll need to give her something for the radiation, Lieutenant Carius," spoke Doctor T'Kalis, taking her time to apply some extra-strong radiation screening cream onto the purple-haired girl beside her. Nana had grown rather attached to the kindly asari, refusing to leave her side except if ordered by Lucy.

With the _Indomitable_ docked for repair and resupply in orbit, the crew had been given shore leave on Palaven for a week. T'Kalis chose to accompany Nana, feeling affectionate towards the girl, and somewhat curious about how she would settle into a more domestic setting. From what Charon had said to her, House Carius had also accepted Nana into their family, under pressure from the Hierarchy's leadership.

"Doctor says that the...radiation...is harmful to Nana. Lucy should get some too," sang Nana, giggling as the asari doctor dabbed on some more cream around the girl's nose. "That's cold!"

"At least you won't be sunburned once it's all on," T'Kalis chided, smiling. She then closed the jar of sunblock and ran her fingers through Nana's hair. "It's been almost two hundred years since I've last been on Palaven. I wonder if the old asari enclave in Cipritine is still there,"

"Definitely still around, if not a bit bigger. Plenty of young asari growing up there," replied the pilot of the transport.

"That's good to hear. I'll be looking forward to visiting some of my friends,"

"It'll be a while until we touch down. We're actually above Cipritine at the moment, but the spaceport is busy like a spirits-damned salarian on stimulants. Still waiting for clearance. If any of you are new to Palaven, I'm about to fly in circles until we're given a spot. Might as well take a look at what's there,"

The city, Lucy noted, was shaped much like a many-pointed star. A wide, water-filled trench ran around the edge, which was itself surrounded by sweeping grasslands. At each point of the star, she could see a squat building with an enormous anti-aircraft gun on top of it. Each was wrapped in a shimmering blue shield bubble, and she could see several aircraft parked on the ground near them. Every building was painted a uniform white, with only the rare splash of colour here and there.

"Every turian city is built to be easily defended," Charon said, scooting over to sit beside her, "Cipritine is, perhaps, the best example of our tradition in building in preparation of war. Every building is fortified, and every street gives no person more than a hundred metres of sight in any direction. There is a certain beauty in it, but I doubt that the asari sense of style would agree with ours,"

"The style is too rigid and cold for my liking," T'Kalis called out, "Nothing like the flowing lines of Thessia. You turians need to lighten up,"

"I haven't seen either yet, so I won't comment on that. Which one's your house, Charon?"

Humming, Charon waited for the transport to make another trip around the city. His eyes scanned the squat buildings on each point of the star-shaped city. To Lucy, each one was simply painted uniformly white; for the life of her, she could not think of what Charon was looking for.

"There it is," said Charon, after what seemed like an eternity. He pointed down at a fortress-like compound, painted white and red all over. Several tanks were parked on the tarmac in front of it, which were also painted a dark crimson. A number of guard towers were spaced around the outer walls. Even the walls themselves reflected the rising sun a little _too_ well; Lucy suspected that they were made of steel, or at least covered in it.

"...I really don't think that's a house,"

"It is my home. Or at least, my family's home; and yours, as well," muttered Charon. "Turian homes are designed for practical purposes. Every building serves a purpose in a war,"

"Trust the turians to think that a house needs to have a cannon mounted on top of it to be considered complete," giggled T'Kalis, earning her an angry glare from Charon. "What? You're an engineer, aren't you? Last I heard from the _Indomitable_ 's engineering crew, they couldn't resist calibrating all the weapons on the ship, from the smallest pistol to the main gun. Don't you feel the same way?"

"Well, if all turians are like that...explains the guns in his apartment," Lucy said in a deadpan tone.

"I knew it! He loves calibrating them, just like the others. Probably spends all night doing it,"

"Being prepared has never harmed anyone," Charon said, shrugging. "I had thought you were a strict, businesslike person on the ship. I did not expect these...questions,"

"Oh, loosen up. Just because I'm a doctor, doesn't mean that I don't know how to cut loose when on shore leave. Or to have some fun," the doctor chuckled. Leaning in, she added in a sultry whisper, "Still, I'm curious. I haven't seen a human with turian markings before. Are you two...together? Has she seen a turian's...personal cannon-"

"No!" Lucy and Charon shouted in unison, drawing stares from everyone else in the transport. Lucy turned a brilliant shade of vermillion, burying her face in her hands. Charon had his mandibles pressed flat against his face.

"There we go. Now you're loosening up. Slightly," T'Kalis chirped, grinning.

Recomposing himself, Charon breathed out, "I would rather not think of my adoptive sister in that manner, thank you,"

"What's a personal cannon?" the purple-haired girl asked innocently, causing all three of them to cringe.

Eyeing Charon, Lucy whispered, "You're explaining this if she asks again later,"

* * *

A/N

Alright. Some sillier fluff at the end; Nana is just way too innocent to not do this.

The design of turian cities is actually mentioned to be practical and defensible. To this end, the closest reference that I could find in real life is a late medieval / renaissance star fort. It'd be entirely in character for turians to design a city with military goals in mind.

Next up: Meeting the...not-quite-in-laws?


	11. 11 - The Palladium

In times of peace, men would want for naught  
Their bellies full, their minds in blissful ease.  
In times of war, in bitter quarrel caught,  
The weak would seek Thanatos' quick release.

Gaia's spawn were not all feeble and meek;  
Some burned with a righteous, flaming fury.  
Though peace and harmony they did first seek  
Alas, some must fight, that all may be free.

* * *

Nothing could have prepared either of the two diclonius women for the scorching heat that blasted their faces when the transport opened its doors in Cipritine's spaceport. Perhaps it was the engines of the other ships in the area that were still radiating heat from their engines. Or perhaps it was the searing wind that was surging in from the open spaceport bay.

"Is it always like this?" gasped Lucy, wiping her face with her arm and grimacing when it was glistening with sweat. Doctor T'Kalis took one look at her and glared at Charon.

"Lieutenant Carius, did you follow my instructions to give her some broad spectrum anti-radiation cream?" T'Kalis grumbled, rummaging in her pockets for the small jar of cream that she had used on Nana and handing it to Lucy.

"I never had the chance to acquire some on the Citadel," Charon said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, "The one that I had would shield from excessive radiation, and I had believed that was sufficient,"

"Nana thinks it is still too hot," the purple-haired one said. She was not dripping in sweat like Lucy was, but there was still a wet sheen to her face.

"Well, the atrium is climate controlled. Maybe we should get there first, rather than stand around here. And for the record, Lieutenant Carius; every Hierarchy warship carries some in their medbay, primarily for any asari crew members. If you required some, you only needed to ask,"

"Noted," Charon replied, following the asari doctor into a deeper part of the spaceport.

The two girls sighed in relief as they passed through the faint blue wall of energy that separated the rest of the spaceport from the hangar. It was pleasantly cool inside, with cool breezes blowing down on them from air conditioning vents. Even the windows just below the ceiling were coated in some deep blue material, shielding the interior from much heat. The feeling of relief, apparently, was shared by any non-turian in the rather large hall; every asari or salarian that was inside the hall had seated themselves around any vents that were not already occupied.

"You know, I don't miss those lines one bit," T'Kalis chuckled, pointing to the long queues from the civilian docking bays on the far side of the atrium.

Charon nodded in response. C-Sec processed any arrivals on the Citadel and it often took the better part of an hour just to process a large transport ship's worth of passengers. One would often be left wishing for a seat at any price at the end of such an ordeal. At least military units could simply pass through. That in itself made him particularly glad that the captain of the _Indomitaable_ had listed him as a crew member.

A pair of turians hauling a large trolley loaded with footlockers was moving about the atrium, checking off military personnel on their datapads. One by one, they shuffled away their cargo, only until a purplish-blue one remained.

"And that would be mine," huffed the asari doctor, waving the porters to come to her. After signing off her name on their datapads, she lifted the footlocker off the trolley with her biotics, easing it down on the floor. "Thank you, gentlemen. Try not to overwork yourselves,"

"Appreciate the sentiment, ma'am, but we have hundreds more to distribute," they replied flatly, scooting away with their now-empty trolley to retrieve some more.

"Turians," she sighed, shaking her head. "Well, I suppose this is where I leave you all. Stay healthy, and try not to do anything too stupid,"

Turning to Nana, she ran her fingers through the girl's hair, smiling. "And you, Miss Nana. You will eat properly from now on, yes? Three meals a day. No less. Ask Uncle Charon to get you some good food, so you can be healthy, yes?"

"Mhm!"

"That's a good girl. Now, I don't know if I'll see you all again, but if you do, let's hope that it's not in my medbay. Goodbye,"

The three of them watched the asari doctor walk towards the exit and disappear from their sight. "Nana is sad that the doctor has to go," whined the young diclonius, "Nana is wondering what Uncle Charon wants to do,"

"We are waiting here for some members of my House to come and collect us. And it seems that they are on time," he replied, scanning the throngs of people entering and leaving the building.

A group of turian females with the same pattern as Charon's was marching towards them, rifles in hand. Six of them wore black armour, highlighted with blood-red flecks of paint. The seventh, in front of them, had an additional stripe of gold running down her right pauldron. All of them carried themselves with grace and aloofness, their presence seemingly enough to cause other turians to scatter from their path.

"Sisters," he droned, bowing his head low. He motioned to Lucy and Nana to do the same, to which they slowly complied.

"Brother," they responded. Their leader, eyeing Nana and Lucy with suspicion, added haughtily, "...I suppose that we should also call you sisters. I do not know why our brother has decided to induct humans on such short notice, but we will assume that there are some circumstances that forced his hand,"

A twinge of anger flashed across Lucy's face, before she controlled herself to mask her expression. There was a certain sense of _dread_ that filled her, just seeing these females. Particularly their leader, whose icy stare seemed to instil a sense fear in her that even the largest of Cerberus' cannons had failed to do.

"If I have offended you in some way, sister, know that our House survives only by the unity of its members," she replied coldly, "Our brother may have accepted you, but until you are accepted by the head of our House, you will still remain an outsider, albeit one that is tolerated,"

"That is enough, Tertia. You will cease to aggravate her. We are exhausted, and we have a certain appointment to attend with our lady," Charon spoke stiffly. Tertia – the leader of the group – regarded him briefly before nodding in agreement.

"This is true. We have an armoured transport ready to leave for our home. Come, and move quickly. Your weapons have already been transferred, so that you will not have to waste any more time here,"

* * *

The turians' 'home' could scarcely be less inviting to any visitor that approached it. There were no less than three security checkpoints on the way to the fortress that they had called Tartarus, each manned by a platoon of heavily armed soldiers. Nana clung tighter and tighter to Lucy's arm as the foreboding tower loomed ever higher, until the entire vehicle was shrouded in a shadow cast by the building.

"Nana," Lucy growled quietly, trying to shake the young diclonius from her arm without luck, "Get off my arm,"

"S-sorry," she squeaked, hastily unwrapping herself from Lucy's arm, "Nana...Nana is scared,"

"There is nothing to be worried about here. The building is perhaps a little confronting to those who have never been here, but we will never harm a person without due cause," Charon said to the shivering girl. The others in the transport were still staring at her disapprovingly, muttering among themselves about cowardice.

The vehicle slowed down to a halt, followed by the sound of a hiss-snap of a barrier field deactivating. The heavy grinding of metal on metal was deafening as a tall, silvery gate rolled laboriously open, revealing the grassy inner courtyard of the fortress. Lucy noted that there were hundreds of turians exercising in the yard, working in tune to the barks of their superiors in front of them. Others still were working on enormous tanks, whose gigantic turrets housed twin-barreled weapons which dwarfed the men polishing the armour plates beneath.

"We have arrived at our destination. I would ask that you please behave as best you can in front of my grandmother and grandfather, who are the current heads of House Carius," Charon spoke sternly to the two women, "And that means that you must not cry, or otherwise show fear, Nana. Bravery is a highly valued trait in our family,"

"Alright. Nana will be good,"

"If this is just a...home...then why are all these soldiers here?" Lucy asked Charon as she disembarked.

"All turians serve the state in one way or another," Charon answered. He held his arms up to help Nana climb down, before adding, "Our family...serves the Primarch of Palaven, whoever he or she may be,"

"That still doesn't tell me much about why the soldiers are here," said Lucy.

"What my brother means to say," interjected a dark-skinned female guard, "Is that we are charged with defending the Primarch of Palaven. These are not only soldiers. These are your brothers maintaining their vehicles, and your sisters ensuring that they remain sharp and ready. And we are housed in one of Cipritine's core garrisons, thus forcing us to maintain their equipment,"

"Thank you, Corvina. I do believe that is accurate,"

"Indeed. Executor and Executrix Carius have been waiting for a while. It is best that you do not keep them waiting,"

Corvina gave the group a curt nod before marching back to the outer gates. "Is she...really your sister?" Lucy asked Charon, noting the similarity between the two. Their scales were both bordering on black, though Corvina was slightly shorter and her manners were perhaps even more rigid than the other turians.

"Yes, unfortunately," sighed Charon, "I will explain later. For now, we must follow her advice. Grandmother and grandfather are not the most patient of people,"

The interior of the fortress was almost as utilitarian as the outside. Only a single sickly ray of light lit the central rotunda from a distant skylight, so far up as to appear no wider than a pin's width. Other, smaller lights were planted in the floor, barely illuminating the walls. While the air outside was uncomfortably warm, the still and silent air within the fortress was almost frigid; Charon grimaced as he registered just how cold the building was, though none of the dozens of other assembled turians did so.

One thing, however, caught Lucy's eye. There was an enormous pillar of blackish-purple stone on the far side of the room, in front of which an aged pair of turians sat on high-backed metal chairs. She could feel some sort of power radiating from the pillar, as though it wanted to pull her in towards it.

Both of the aged turians stood up, and every turian in the room snapped their hands to their foreheads in a salute. Lucy and Nana awkwardly followed suit, mimicking Charon as best they could.

"At ease," a rough, raspy female voice called out, and every person in the assembly lowered their arms. The entire hall was so quiet that one could hear the breathing of the person beside them. "Today, we are graced by the presence of two newly-inducted members of House Carius. One upon the request of the Primarch of Palaven, who we are all sworn to obey until the day either the Hierarchy or this House is dissolved. The other, by collection of a great debt owed to one of our members, which we are obliged to honour,"

The gathered Carius clan members bowed their heads and murmured, "As written in our Codex, so shall it be,"

"Lucia Carius. Nana Carius. Please step forward," spoke the taller male at the front of the gathering. Lucy froze, unsure of what to do, until Charon nudged her forward along with Nana.

"Remember to maintain your composure," he whispered under his breath.

Walking towards the pillar seemed to take an eternity. She could feel every pair of eyes on her – or perhaps on Nana. If the rapid breathing of the younger girl was any indication, she was also struggling to remain calm. As they drew closer, she noticed that the ancient female turian in front of her seemed to narrow her eyes. Was it disapproval, or was it something else?

"Lucia Carius," the turian woman spoke, slowly and deliberately, "I, Executrix Quinta Carius, formally acknowledge your induction into my House. If there are any in this hall that would object, speak now, or hold your peace,"

Silence. Not a single soul moved. Turning to Nana, Quinta repeated the words, to which she was met with silence. The ancient turian male beside her handed her a black metal knife and a shallow silver bowl.

"Then, if there are none that would object, this matter is settled," called out Quinta to the gathering. To Lucy's shock, Quinta drew her knife across her palm and squeezed her own blood into the silver bowl, filling the base with a small amount of dark blue blood. The turian beside her then held out a roll of white bandages, which she tightly wrapped around the gash in her palm.

"Let this be a sign that from this day onward, you will be seen as kin to all of House Carius," she said a slightly higher voice, though her face showed no pain. Warm liquid dripped onto Lucy's face as the ancient turian traced around the markings on her face with a talon dipped in blood. "And to the rest of the Hierarchy, and to all turians abroad, that you will be seen as a representative of the House,"

The same procedure she repeated on Nana. "Your brothers and sisters shall assist you in your hour of need, as you will for them. They shall spill their blood to protect yours, and none shall betray the others, even if the Hierarchy were to collapse. You shall strive to uphold the honour of the House in all your dealings with others, both within our ranks and without. Do you, Nana Carius, accept these as your duties and your rights?"

"Yes," squeaked Nana. The poor girl was barely able to restrain her fright; Lucy swore that Quinta's mouth twitched a little, obviously noticing the girl's discomfort.

"And do you, Lucia Carius, accept these as your duties and your rights?"

"Yes," Lucy replied, nodding ever so slightly.

"Then this matter is concluded! You are all dismissed; return to your duties. Lucia and Nana, you are to remain with me until further notice,"

* * *

"Walk with me," Quinta said in a calm, motherly voice. She had taken them to the private apartments of the fortress, where the family of the current head of House Carius resided. No longer were the rooms so poorly lit that one could easily run into a wall; but instead, there was a sunny, brightly-lit indoor garden, in front of a small rock pool. Small plants grew in well-tended arrangements in crevices between bone-white stones above it, while a large tree-vine draped its silver leaves over the entire scene.

"I had heard from Charon of your ordeals. You have my commiserations," rasped the elderly turian.

Lucy simply nodded in acknowledgement, not sure if Quinta was being honest. The turian, however, looked wistfully at her mechanical arm-

"Is that...?"

"A prosthetic, yes," sighed Quinta, "The doctors in Cipritine could easily create a cloned arm, if I had asked. But I chose to have a prosthetic one as a reminder of what blind rage could do,"

Quinta continued walking, stopping in front of the rock pool. Staring into the shimmering water, she quietly added, "I am not blind to your abilities, as you would think. I cannot see these...hands...with my arms; but I can sense their presence. Both yours and Nana's. You wield a power that is invisible, and men fear that which they cannot see,"

What Quinta had said caused Lucy to stop in her tracks. "You can sense the vectors?"

"By disruptions in the air, yes. They occupy a space, disrupting the natural flow of the air. I can sense that these disruptions follow you and Nana, wherever you walk. I suppose that boy was not merely taking a fancy to you, and that what he had written in his report had merit,"

Turning to face the two diclonii, Quinta held out her non-prosthetic arm above the rock pool. A ball of dark energy shot downwards, forming a bubble around some water and slowly lifting it upwards. She tipped her head, and the bubble drifted sideways, orbiting lazily around the three of them.

"What do you suppose I am doing?" queried the ancient turian, crossing her arms. Nana was too fascinated by the bubble to offer an answer; Lucy frowned, not really recognising what she had done. The ball of dark energy – it was something that Tessara had shown her on the Citadel, using it to crumble a cluster of nuts without even touching them.

"Biotics...?" whispered Lucy, unsure if that was the correct term. Quinta nodded in approval, throwing another ball of energy into the water to create another sphere. This one likewise orbited around all three of them, following its twin.

"Correct. What I am performing now is a mere cantrip. A party trick designed to amuse guests and visitors," said Quinta. She brought her fingers closer together, and the two balls of water hovered in front of their eyes, a hand's breadth apart. "It is a power that the ungifted fear. Water must be held in a container, most would say. And they would be correct; we biotics simply create the container from nothingness, suspending matter in a bubble of greatly reduced gravity,"

Lucy tried to poke the nearest bubble with her finger, but it simply danced away from her reach. "How come I've never seen Charon do something like this?"

"Among turians, the ability is seldom seen. And when it is seen, we are feared and reviled by those without the gift," Quinta answered sadly, "Charon, though ungifted, sees no harm in it, as he is a child of my family and every one of his sisters wields the same power. I doubt that the rest of his training platoon would agree with his assessment, however. They would call us craven, wielding abilities that they could neither comprehend nor see,"

"Nana doesn't understand. Miss Quinta doesn't look mean. Why are the others mean to Miss Quinta's family?"

Quinta's mandibles tightened as she frowned. "There comes a time when you must learn to ignore such meaningless words. They simply do not understand it as we do, or as the asari do. With time, I had hoped that sentiment would soon disappear. However, that did not come to pass, and we were placed in squadrons of those who are also gifted so that we would not . The Turian Hierarchy's kabalim corps,"

The bubbles of water merged into one as Quinta held out her palm. It now hovered in place, smooth and sparkling, much like a ball of solid crystal. "Tell me, the two of you. What do you see? A power to create that which one could imagine?"

The turian's hand clenched into a fist, and the sphere of water exploded in her hand. "Or a power to destroy?"

"I think it's useful as a weapon," declared Lucy. Nana remained silent, looking curiously at Quinta for an answer.

"So I see. You were much like myself when I was younger, and when I was simply a novice cabalist," Quinta spoke softly. She vanished in a flash, reappearing beside Lucy's side and walking back towards the exit elevator, "Take heed of my advice. Power without purpose ravages all that it touches. Purpose without power merely fades into obscurity. Temper power with purpose, and perhaps you shall make something of note,"

* * *

A/N

Shortish filler chapter this time.

Zealous specter: There is no reason to include that sort of pairing yet - if ever. The two are so diametrically opposed that the only way it could end is in a rather bloody fight.


	12. 12 - War Without Hate

The days following Quinta's speech to both Lucy and Nana were mostly peaceful, with both diclonii assigned to basic training with some elder cabalists under her orders. Nana had enthusiastically embraced the training regime with little more than a word from Charon. However, the fiery-tempered Lucy had required more than a little coaxing by the turian to convince her to accept the training.

Grudgingly, Lucy lined up in the exercise hall in the morning, before the sun had even risen. As part of the deal she had struck with Charon, he was also present beside her, already in a set of full combat gear.

"What's the point of training my body when my vectors can do everything that I'd want to do," she grumbled dismissively, bending down to stretch, "I should be out there, hunting Cerberus,"

"I know that you desire that above all else, Lucy. But I assure you that it is better to be prepared for all possibilities," he reminded her, grimacing, "After all, do you remember what had happened in your previous sparring session against Corvina?"

"You don't need to remind me," Lucy spoke, through gritted teeth. Corvina had been a much stronger – and faster – opponent than any that she had ever seen; warping about the sparring ring with biotics-enhanced speed, striking at her so hard and so fast that her fists and talons appeared to be blurs. A hard kick to the diclonius queen's stomach had been enough to crumple her to the ground, doubled over in pain, and the next moment she found herself with a gloved talon at her throat, tapping the ground to signify that she yielded.

 _You are superior to these creatures. Prove it,_ the voice in her head hissed.

"You said that you could not use your vectors for the better part of ten minutes," he continued, placing a hand on her shoulder. "It is a powerful gift that you have been given, but it is not one that can be relied upon at all times. It seems that excessive pain is enough to disable them for long periods at a time,"

"Indeed. I know about your abilities, and how dangerous those vectors could be. However, if they are disabled, then they are of no use to you," Corvina added. The female turian slipped on a pair of black armlets and a pair of rather bulky boots, before throwing another identical set at Lucy's feet. "Put these on, and we will begin today's physical training,"

Lucy tentatively picked one up. The black cloth armband seemed a bit thick at first glance, and only when she held it in both hands did she realise why that was. "Weighted clothing?" she muttered, shifting it from one hand to another. It had to weigh at least ten pounds per piece!

"Yes. Weighted clothing. Standard training aids for all cabalist agents, particularly useful for those to be deployed on high-gravity worlds," replied Corvina sharply, "The previous exercises that we have performed were merely to gauge your physical fitness. While your strength seems to be in an acceptable state, your endurance is sorely lacking. We will start with five full runs around the compound,"

"Five?" groaned Lucy. The fortress' perimeter took almost half an hour at a brisk walk. "That's going to take all day!"

Corvina glared at her mercilessly. "Straighten up, soldier. We'll be doing that in only an hour. You have completed this exercise before, without added weights nor a time constraint. I will be leading this exercise with the rest of our squad. Make sure that you do not fall behind, or there will be additional physical training afterwards,"

She noticed Charon walking away towards the rest of the squad, and promptly latched on to him with a biotic grab and pulled him back to her. "And you. Do not assume that you are excused from completing this exercise without the required gear. If our sister here is to be trained at your request, then the least you could do is accompany her through all of it,"

"I am not a cabalist, I am an engineer! This was not part of my training," he whined, earning him a hard slap on the mandible by his sister.

"You will put the training gear on without any further delay, or you will be on latrine duty for the rest of the week," Corvina growled, towering over a shrinking Charon, "Do I make myself clear, soldier?"

"Crystal, ma'am,"

"That is Captain Carius to you while we are on duty, soldier. Now move out!" she roared, causing Charon to throw on the pieces of weighted clothing with incredible speed and sprint to the rest of the waiting squad. As soon as Charon was out of earshot, she sighed and added, "If only he was less averse to training..."

* * *

It did not take long for Lucy to decide that Corvina was a hard – _very_ hard – taskmaster, compared to Charon. She urged them on relentlessly, yelling at those that fell behind, and picking up the pace whenever they caught up. By the end of the exercise, not a single one of them was free from sweat. The cabalist regulars were only covered in a thin layer of it, while Charon, Lucy and Nana were all drenched and gasping for breath.

"I expect you all back here at 0600 hours tomorrow morning! Dismissed!" Corvina barked. The regulars all saluted her crisply and promptly dispersed into the base. "Lucia, Charon. Remain behind and see me immediately,"

"How come she gets to go off on her own," muttered Lucy, eyeing Nana as she disappeared with a few of the others.

"Because she has already acquired all the training that she needs," Charon replied to her.

Corvina chuckled as she approached the two. "Perceptive, brother. However, that is not entirely correct. Come with me, both of you. I have scheduled an appointment with an Armax Arsenal representative in our armoury,"

"Armoury? I've already got armour and guns from Charon,"

The female turian glared at her brother with unbridled fury blazing in her eyes. "That armour belongs to C-Sec. To an asari with one human parent, or a human. Specifically, in Zakera Ward, upper level. Is any of this incorrect, Charon? The quartermaster nearly had an aneurysm when he checked the armour's serial number and identification," she growled venomously, glaring at her brother. When he weakly nodded, Corvina groaned and clapped a hand over her eyes, "Do I want to know about _how_ or _why_ you acquired this suit of armour? Or how that woman is supposed to work without it? Never mind, do not answer that. Spirits, I'll need to wash my mind down with some drinks in the evening..."

She muttered a few angry words under her breath before snapping her gaze back onto Lucy. "In any event, the armour that you were wearing is C-Sec property and must be returned,"

"So...I'm going to go without any protection? At all?" Lucy demanded, balling her fists.

"Ease up, _acolyte_. I have not said all that I must," spoke Corvina, narrowing her eyes, "In any event, returning the armour would be the best choice for you. Elkoss Combine gear is hardly suitable for rank and file Hierarchy troops, let alone the kabalim corps,"

Lucy pursed her lips. The armour had worked just fine in the arena on the Citadel. The way that Corvina almost hissed the name of the company indicated more than just a passing disapproval. "What's wrong with...Elkoss Combine?"

The moment that those words had left her lips, Corvina snarled and rounded on Charon. "Spirits, Charon. You swore an oath of protection, upon the name of our House, and then failed to provide her with sufficient protective equipment! Knowingly! To misappropriate others' gear is one matter, but this?"

"It is not as though I have the time or money to purchase better equipment," he countered, holding up his hands.

"We will speak of this later," growled Corvina. Turning back to Lucy, she explained, "The primary issue with Elkoss Combine equipment is that they are, for a lack of better words, discounted. Those volus have attempted to maximise profits at the expense of equipment quality,"

Lucy's gaze bored holes into Corvina's skull. Charon had provided more support for her than anyone else had done so far in the past few weeks. How dare she insult everything that he had done for her!

"Regardless, what is in the past is in the past," continued the female turian, spotting Lucy's displeasure, "I do not entirely approve of what Charon has done, but it seems that he has provided you with a barely sufficient level of protection. Enough of this. Let us walk to the armoury,"

* * *

"Security clearance accepted. Welcome, Captain Corvina Carius," the VI gatekeeper chimed, as the steel bolts holding the blast doors to the armoury clanked into their retaining slots. A warning alarm blared when the high-pressure hydraulics activated and began to laboriously shift the doors open.

Lucy could only gape at what she saw inside. There were weapons everywhere the eye could see; from small concealable handguns to enormous crew-served multiple-barreled assault cannons. Tank turrets dangled from artificial gravity clamps on the ceiling, and several sets of spare treads lay stacked neatly in one corner. A small mountain of heatsinks were piled next to crates of various coloured ammunition blocks in a pit in the centre of the room, where a large group of turians slaved away to clean and repair disassembled guns.

"What...the hell?" Lucy said, shaking her head in disbelief. There were probably enough weapons in here to equip an army. Possibly even a few.

"This is Tartarus Fortress' armoury. We are responsible for maintaining the northern city garrison and its inventory of equipment," Charon whispered in her ear, "When war comes, all of this will be redistributed to the city reservists and the citizen militia,"

"Incredible. And this belongs to...your family?"

"Our family, sister," Corvina corrected her, "You are as much one of us as any other turian born into it. And no, this armoury does not technically belong to our family. It belongs to the Turian Hierarchy, and we are its caretaker,"

She nodded mutely, still stunned by how much firepower was hiding underneath the fortress. Charon had once seemed like an avid gun collector to her on the Citadel; perhaps even bordering on obsessive. However, that had all changed the moment that she walked into this room. His collection was now perfectly reasonable in comparison. Perhaps even tame.

"Well, Corvina. It appears that you have succeeded in stunning her without using any biotics or weapons," chuckled Charon. A trolley loaded with hundreds of collapsed Carnifex pistols rolled past, and Charon plucked out a familiar silver one and placed it in Lucy's hands. "I suppose this was also your idea, Corvina? Having every weapon that I brought with me sent to maintenance?"

Corvina shot him a dirty look. "Yes, indeed. And your illegal – and outright dangerous – modifications have been removed. Spirits know why you had tripled the mass accelerator capacitor charge on a Carnifex. A hand cannon, of all things, and you decided that did not have enough firepower! Did you intend on breaking the user's wrist or arm?"

"It was still usable," Lucy said, shrugging. Corvina looked at her as though she had grown a second head, and then glanced over to Charon who simply nodded back.

"I will have to see this for myself," the female turian said, shaking her head disbelievingly. A male turian in a laboratory coat approached them, saluting Corvina when she turned to face him. "This is Specialist Vulcan, representative of Armax Arsenal. He shall be fitting your new suit of combat armour,"

Vulcan blinked at Lucy, his mandibles twitching uncomfortably. "Auxiliary," he greeted her stiffly, giving her a curt nod, "Follow me,"

They walked into a walled-off section in the back of the armoury, where a camera drone was hovering above a pedestal. Rolls of black cloth-like material were leaning against the walls, behind which were crates of white armour plates. Helmets of all sizes and shapes lay in neat rows on shelves on one side. A bin of damaged armour sets sat in the corner, a rusty glove or boot occasionally falling out of the overfilled container. Vulcan walked to a workbench, where he had set up a small computer with a holoprojector.

"Stand in the circle on the ground. Legs apart, and arms lifted up to your sides, and remain as still as possible," ordered Vulcan, pointing at a small white circle painted on the concrete floor. As soon as Lucy did so, the camera drone hovered off its pedestal and emitted a soft blue light, scanning her body from top to bottom.

A hologram of her form popped up in front of Vulcan. The turian's subharmonics were rumbling furiously as he inspected the results, typing rapidly on his computer. "Thank you...Miss Carius. I have the data required to properly fit one of our products to suit your body. You may relax now,"

"I don't get why this is even needed," she muttered under her breath, moving to stand beside Charon again. "The one that I had before was comfortable enough. And I killed all of those Cerberus troopers without even taking a hit,"

"You have only worn it for at most half a day. Until you have been placed on a frontier colony in hostile territory without taking it off for weeks, you would never know why a good suit of armour is necessary for every one of our cabalists," replied Charon quietly, "And as much as it shames myself to admit it, Corvina is correct. I have given you a substandard suit that would likely be unable to absorb any amount of serious firepower, and thus placed you in grave danger when we assaulted the Cerberus facility,"

"That...I really didn't need to hear. Definitely not the part about taking it off for weeks," Lucy muttered, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. She had lived in a lab with questionable hygiene practices at best for most of her life, but the suggestion of not cleaning herself or at least changing clothing for weeks on end brought back some particularly disgusting memories. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose, wishing that she could at least have some time to freshen up.

 _Since when did you care about how these feeble peons thought about you?_ Growled the voice in her head.

"Be as it may," Corvina spoke, interrupting the two, "That is the reality of frontline deployment. Hygiene is not of particularly high priority when hostile fire is more likely to kill you than an infection. And that is precisely why we require the best equipment be made available for all of our cabalists,"

"Speaking of the best equipment, Captain Corvina, there is no such thing as a universal solution," said Vulcan. He reached into a crate beside him and lifted out a number of different pieces of armour. Several appeared to be thick and heavy, while others were rather thin and light; one was glowing blue from what appeared to be an almost solid kinetic barrier on its front.

Carefully, he laid them out on the table. "Armour will only protect an individual whose style it suits best, and even then only on the right battlefield conditions. Every day, I get calls from generals who think that the heaviest pieces of gear will help their troops stay alive for longer on a battlefield, or if an extra large kinetic barrier generator will do the trick. Neither of those worked on Shanxi, and I make a point to remind my clients of the Relay 314 Incident,"

"Shanxi? Relay 314 Incident?" asked Lucy, frowning. Neither of those terms meant anything to her; but if the flash of anger on Vulcan's face was any indication, it must have been some sort of terrible event. The subtle shifting of both Corvina and Charon on their feet all but confirmed her thoughts on the matter.

The Armax Arsenal representative looked at her incredulously. "I'd have thought that every human knows about that incident and that battle," he said, "The first battle the turians had lost in decades, and all to a newly discovered alien race-"

Lucy's face remained blank. Cerberus had not found it necessary to teach her anything about the outside world, after all.

"You really don't know about it, do you? Then I'll keep this short," he sighed. Speaking slowly and deliberately, he added, "We invaded a human world that was named Shanxi after they activated Relay 314, in defiance of Council law. I was deployed there with the fourth platoon, third division, 26th Armiger Legion, as the squad's combat engineer. Several hundred of our division members died on that world, all because of the higher ups' mistakes in outfitting our troops,"

"Mistakes?" asked Charon, somewhat curious as to what mistakes had been made. The incident tended to be swept under the rug whenever it was even discussed in turian academies.

"Boy, you haven't lived long enough to see half the mistakes that the old guard made. In the Krogan Rebellions, maybe heavy armour was the best choice, given that those brutes could rip you in half with their shotguns – but were not smart enough to make use of the terrain. Against humans? The little imps would appear out of nowhere, killing one or two of us, and then fading away as soon as we tried looking for them. If you couldn't move as quickly as they did, you're asking for a bullet to the neck or head," he spat furiously, remembering the boneheaded resistance that the generals had against his ideas of reform, "The Incident only showed me how poorly our strategic planning suffered through centuries of peace. All of us were outfitted with outdated and heavy suits of armour on a hot, wet, swampy wasteland of a world. We were too used to fighting in cities and on deserts,"

He paused to take another deep breath, but given the way his mandibles were twitching erratically, it was clear that he was struggling to contain his anger. "My squad was one of the first ones to be deployed. I didn't agree with what the generals were outfitting us with, and so I took it upon myself to create something that looked identical to the old heavy suits using ultralight composites. Weighed only a third of what the other boys and girls had, but they didn't know that. Turned out that I was right in doing that. We were ambushed by the humans only an hour into our sortie,"

"How many survived?" Corvina asked quietly. From her mother and father's stories, those that were ambushed by the humans often were slaughtered to the last man if they did not surrender. And turians never surrendered willingly.

"I was the only one that managed to survive for long enough until high command got some of our flyer boys in to evacuate what's left of my squad. Which is to say, myself. The others couldn't even run in the swamps, much less find any cover," he muttered, shaking his head. "I didn't sink into the swamps like the others did, and I could still sprint without being too weighed down. Sure, their armour would probably take three or four more shots to penetrate than mine, and their barriers would probably take dozens more. But no matter how good your armour is, it's better to not take the hits in the first place,"

Charon and Corvina looked at each other and then nodded. What the man was saying was true. Kinetic barriers and armour was better off untested in a live fire situation. "I understand your point," Corvina said, walking over to him, "However, I do not have clearance for purchasing multiple suits of armour for one person. We will simply have to settle for one which suits her best for most environments,"

"In that case, I'd recommend the Armax Arsenal Aegis. It's not the heaviest of armour, but it does provide enough protection against everything up to and including sniper rifle rounds to the vitals,"

The man pushed forward a dark gray suit of armour. "I do not have one for Lucy's dimensions at the moment, but this one will do to show you the general layout. Most of the protection is on the chest and abdomen, as one would expect. The backplates offer as much protection as the front. The armour plates on the arms and legs are made of ultralight composites, while the chest and backplates are of the same material with a thin coat of Silaris carbon nanotube plate,"

"You..." Charon mouthed, gawking, "I am uncertain if I had heard that correctly. Silaris plate, on a set of personal armour?"

"Yes, that's correct. In an unprecedented joint venture between Armax Arsenal and Serrice Council, we have acquired the right to manufacture Silaris armour under license from the asari. The asari may have better control over the exact process, but our industrial capacity for producing infantry equipment is second to none. It's still expensive to outfit a whole army, and it's not as good as the original starship-grade Silaris plate; but it won't bankrupt the Hierarchy either, and it certainly doesn't make the armour so heavy that you need an eezo core to lift it,"

"Are we...authorised to do this...?" Corvina muttered to herself. Her eyes were gazing longingly on the dark armour on the table. Compared to her own scarred and dented armour, the fresh suit was tantalisingly beautiful.

"You are. Current orders from the Primarch indicate that Armax Arsenal is to provide this to the 26th Armigers and the Kabalim Corps, before proceeding to outfit the rest of the Hierarchy military," said Vulcan, checking on his computer. "You and your fellows are very lucky indeed. There's a four month backlog on this gear, and it looks like the Palaven garrisons are all receiving the first batch in a week's time,"

Without any reason to refuse, Charon glanced at his sister and nodded. "Excellent. I will upload the dimensions to our factories. You should receive this set with the rest of the shipment intended for the Tartarus garrison," the Armax representative said crisply, falling back into an obviously crafted professional routine, "Now, is there anything else that you need?"

"Not at the moment. I thank you for your time,"

"My pleasure. We at Armax hope that our products will continue to live up to your expectations. We do, however, have more products to demonstrate, as these will also be provided to the engineering crew and the armoured cavalry,"

* * *

That night, Lucy excused herself early after dinner and raced to the common room. The way the Armax representative reacted to how she said she did not know about the Relay 314 Incident with barely concealed surprise was more than a little unsettling for her. It was as though it were meant to be common knowledge for all humans, and she was the only one left in the dark. Even Charon knew what it was, and he was certainly not a human.

The common room had several public terminals, lined up on a table with a long bench. Few of the cabalists used them, and the fewer engineers present barely lifted their eyes from their work as she sat down in front of one.

She typed away, searching for information regarding the incident. There was no shortage of information. Tens of thousands of articles regarding the battle, dozens of declassified videos, and hundreds of re-enactments of the land battle quickly surfaced to the top of her search. She clicked on the first article, written by an asari, expecting to learn something about why the turian from Armax seemed more than a little upset about the battle.

A five-minute read quickly turned into half an hour; and an hour quickly devolved into two. Eventually, the common room grew empty, its occupants leaving to sleep. Still she was in front of the terminal, her bleary eyes glued to the screen.

The entry door to the room slid open, and she paid it no mind. "Lucy?" Charon's voice called out, making her jump in her chair, "Oh. I apologise for the intrusion, but it is now late into the night, and you have an early morning appointment with Corvina tomorrow, before daybreak. What are you doing at this hour of night at a console?"

When no answer came, he drew closer. The screen in front of her showed a battle between humans and turians in a city. There were bodies littering the streets, both human and turian; though there were more dead humans. Some were even civilians, given the absence of armour on their limp forms.

"Relay 314 Incident: Battle of Shanxi," he murmured, reading the title of the video. Lucy nodded slowly in response. "You do not strike me as a person that is interested in history, Lucy. Is there a reason for your sudden interest in this event?"

"It's..." she started, hesitating for a few moments, "That man. Vulcan. He seemed angry about the Relay 314 Incident. Even more after I said I knew nothing about it..."

"And so you thought that you would search for information regarding that event on the extranet," Charon finished, nodding slowly, "Understandable. But that does not explain why it has taken you four hours. Surely that can be covered in less than an hour or two,"

She turned around, opening her mouth as though to say something, though her voice refused to say anything. Eventually, she sighed and shook her head. "I...took a look at every video that I could find. Every article that I could read,"

He sat down on the bench beside her. "That would explain why you required so much time. However, I am still curious. That was only a single battle, and not a particularly violent one in the history of the galaxy,"

"Only a single battle. And not that violent?" Lucy repeated, shocked, "The humans killed hundreds to thousands of turians. And they hurt many more. The turians did the same back to the humans, and destroyed a few cities. And that...that wasn't _that_ violent?"

"That is the reality of war. People are wounded, and some are killed. Every soldier knows this, and every leader is aware of the sacrifices that must be made for the good of their nation," replied Charon evenly. War was never a particularly easy topic to talk about, even among soldiers. "Those who kill have blood on their hands. Grandmother often spoke of this. If two nations are at war, and both nations' soldiers fight in the belief that their side has a just cause, then who is truly evil for spilling the blood of their enemies? Can you hate a person for doing exactly that which you are doing? Can you hate a people whose only fault is to defend their own beliefs and guard their own rights?"

She looked up at him. "Vulcan. He hated me. Just by looking at me. He saw a human, didn't he? An enemy? Something to hate?"

That question left Charon's mandibles hanging wide in shock. "Spirits, what drove you to think that?" he spoke; perhaps a little loudly, given how Lucy flinched, "I apologise if that was rude, but I must ask,"

"Don't all turians hate humans? I saw videos of what they did to...what they did to...the ones that were in the swamp. What Vulcan was describing," she whispered, "How can you forgive something like...that? I saw a few just disappear after a grenade or a rocket blew up at their feet. Nothing left of them,"

"Lucy..." Charon said, mulling over what she had said.

 _Face it. They are your enemies. You are their enemies. Kill him, and the others in this base. They only want to use you!_

"Shut up," the diclonius hissed, gripping the sides of her head.

The voice was powerful; authoritative, demanding her respect. Demanding her obedience. It threatened to compel her to push her vectors out, to lash out at him; to tear him to bits, and the rest of the fortress too. A sharp pain spiked through her head, causing her to whimper.

 _It's like the facility. They want to keep us here. They want to stop you from showing your strength._

When she felt a hand on her shoulder, the voice receded into silence. The pain, likewise, faded away. "Lucy. Look at me," Charon's voice whispered in her ear. When she did not respond, Charon took her shoulder and gently turned her around. "It is probably best that you leave this research behind for the time being and ask to speak with Executrix Carius, who you know as Quinta, for guidance. What happened? It is most unlike you to care so much about others that you have barely even met. You did not hesitate to destroy every Cerberus trooper out in the facility, even with all the witnesses aboard the _Indomitable_ , and yet the personal opinion of a single turian seemed to matter so much to yourself,"

She still refused to look him in the eye.

A part of her wanted to tell him about the voice in her head. That dark, lingering presence that wanted nothing more than to destroy every living creature in sight, friendly or otherwise. The one that demanded that she spread the seeds of her kind wherever she could. The one that demanded the submission or death of all that was before her.

Yet another part of her was frightened of the consequences of doing so. This man in front of her was one of the few that she knew that did not treat her as a weapon, or as another number. What if he turned away from her because of it? What if he threw her out with nowhere else to stay? What if she lost control of herself, and destroyed all that he held dear?

For a fleeting moment, she wished that what he had said was true. That there could be war without hate.

* * *

A/N

Been a while since I've last updated this. Been busy on a road trip.

Lucy will now finally know that the world isn't so cut-and-dry, black-on-white. Not all humans are bad, as not all turians are good. Hopefully her fractured mind can get around the fact that simple dichotomies do not work out too well.


	13. 13 - The Vigilante

Shepard had been in a rather irritable mood after rescuing a rather excitable salarian scientist from the slums of Omega. If the ship had been nearly silent before, with only the crew doing their work on the command deck, entering the weapons lab on the starboard side of the ship was enough to give her a migraine. Even with all the nanites that Cerberus had given her to keep her running at peak efficiency, there were simply some migraine-inducing things that could not be shut out.

Like rapid-fire dialogue with a hyperactive salarian mind.

"More coffee," she groaned, pushing an empty mug under the spout of the only coffee machine in the mess hall. A pile of used cups sat in the sink under running water, evidence of simply how much extra motivation the crew needed.

"Mordin doing his thing again, eh? Too much scientific jabbering?" grunted Mess Sergeant Gardner, taking the cup from her. "Go and sit down, I'll get this thing to you once it's done. God knows how you deal with listening to him,"

"Thanks, Gardner. And frankly, I don't know. I suppose I just listen to the important bits before tuning out,"

"Hey, beats having to listen to Miranda blather on about her paperwork. C-Sec lifted their blanket ban on Cerberus vessels yet? I still haven't gotten those cooking ingredients, you know,"

Shepard dropped her head onto the table with a loud crash. "No, not yet. I asked Councillor Anderson if he could have that order rescinded, but his hands are tied. The Hierarchy isn't happy about what they found on Etamis, and with both the Asari Republics and the Hierarchy blocking a motion to have only the Normandy allowed back in the Citadel as a ship under Spectre control, we've got no way of actually getting there,"

"That doesn't mean that we can't get what we need on the Citadel," Miranda chipped in, seating herself with a protein bar in her hand, "That order only mentions that Cerberus vessels cannot dock on the Citadel. Nothing about us being able to have supplies delivered by shuttle in orbit, without actually docking,"

Shepard glanced up at Gardner. The man was practically grinning from ear to ear with excitement at the prospect of having something better than stock rations to work with. She personally would not mind having meals that did not, in Joker's words, 'taste like ass'. And judging by the other crew members' hopeful faces, the very same thoughts were running in their minds.

"Miranda, what is the status of Archangel on Omega? Is there any movement on his position?" she sighed resignedly. As much as she wanted to get her job done and over with on the crime hub of the galaxy, Aria was not being particularly cooperative at that moment.

"Nothing yet. Only that the Blue Suns are actively recruiting members for some sort of attack on his safehouse. Which means that they haven't gone ahead with the attack yet,"

"Alright. That means that we still have some time, and it doesn't look like Aria is willing to let us get into Afterlife at the moment just yet, with that brawl that the Blood Pack had in there. Joker, set a course for the Citadel, and send a message to Zakera Cafe that we'd like to know where they get their ingredients from,"

* * *

Cadmus Vakarian was not a turian to be easily shocked. He had seen everything under the sun that criminals may have ever wanted to do. Drug smuggling and gun trafficking. Slavery and prostitution. Burglaries and robberies. Bribery and corruption of officials. Not a single one of them fazed him in the line of duty, as would be expected of any good turian.

Yet of all the things that could possibly cause him to howl in rage, it was his son. Not only was it bad enough that the Hierarchy saw fit to recommend him for Spectre training; the boy actually accepted it! Granted, it was perhaps his varren-pup love for his ersatz commander that drove him to accept the recommendation and embark on the training, despite all the stern words that he had said to the boy.

"Dad. I'm sorry. I should have listened. They got half my crew. Sidonis is nowhere to be seen, and we're under siege," the communicator on his desk said, the voice distorted by static. It was still unmistakably his foolish son's voice, occasionally punctuated by a spray of bullets hitting a wall. "We're down to six men. Blue Suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack are all converging on our position. So far, it's only recruits, but they're holding back their best for last. I don't know how much longer we can last,"

Growling, Cadmus hit the transmit button on his communicator. He did not raise his child to be a lawless vigilante; but neither did he raise his child to be a _coward_ , of all things. "Finish up your target practice and come home. With your rifle,"

There was a brief pause, followed by a strained reply. "That will be...hard,"

As much as Cadmus burned with rage at the boy's actions, he was still his son. As misguided as his beliefs were that due process were simply impediments to delivering true justice, death was not the appropriate punishment for stupidity. "Hold out for another few hours. I will request some assistance to extract you from there. And you _will_ listen to what I will say when you arrive back home. Do you hear me?"

Without waiting for confirmation, Cadmus tapped the commlink closed. He cradled his head in his hands in frustration. There was no possible way to request his old comrades in the Hierarchy Legions for an extraction force, as his foolish boy had decided to venture out into the Terminus Systems. Omega, of all places! He needed a force that was readily available, with plausible deniability, and yet none came to mind almost immediately.

Mercenaries would likely scoff at his request. C-Sec officers were not viewed in a particularly positive manner by guns-for-hire, as their interests rarely aligned. Not to mention that his son was actively being hunted by the three largest mercenary groups in the Terminus Systems.

Black ops? He did not know of anyone in the Blackwatch. And if he did, he suspected that those bare-faced honourless varren would drag his family's name through the mud. No, he could not ask for assistance from there.

It was then that he noticed the emblem of the northern Cipritine garrison on his desk. He thumbed the black medallion, running a talon over the scarred surface. It was true that the kabalim corps were part of the military, but they were often distrusted by other turians. If they were caught, it would be much easier to feign ignorance of their actions. Particularly as they often worked separately from the other arms of the Hierarchy's military.

Yes. That would do. House Carius was a long-time ally of the Vakarian family. He could call in a favour now to request an extraction team, off the books. He dreaded what sort of payment he would have to prepare for them; but such was the price of having a rebellious child.

* * *

"Charon. Corvina. You are both to report to hangar A, bay eleven!" hollered a voice from outside, banging on the door of their dormitory room, "Scramble, soldiers! You have ten minutes to get in gear and get to the shuttle! This is not a drill!"

"An attack? No, that is certainly impossible," Charon groaned, shifting himself off the hard bunk. Corvina likewise grumbled and rolled off the top bunk, using her biotics to gently lower herself down.

"I suppose we will be briefed on arrival. No time to waste, brother. Get to the armoury and we will likely receive our orders on the shuttle,"

Casting a glance at the softly snoring form of Lucy in the corner bunk, Charon hoped that the order was simply a false alarm, or at worst a minor incident. The woman had some strange thoughts running through her mind after meeting with the Armax representative the previous day and pointedly refused to speak anything about it. The manner in which she seemed to be speaking to herself at times worried him. Her vectors were potent weapons, and mental instability in those wielding invisible weapons was an extremely dangerous situation.

"We will return soon," he muttered, throwing on his armour and rushing out of the room. Corvina was quicker and had already vaulted herself over the railing, levitating down to the ground floor below.

Before he could set a single foot out of the door, he flew backwards as though he hit a solid wall. Groaning, he stood back up, rubbing his bruised nose. Looking around, he saw Lucy glaring at him, slowly climbing down from her bunk.

"If you're going somewhere, I'm coming with you," she declared, crossing her arms. There was a certain force in her words, one that indicated that there was to be no argument.

"The order was for myself and Corvina. This does not involve you," replied Charon with as much authority as he could muster.

"I'm going. And that's final," Lucy growled. A frown crossed her face, and she walked closer to him. "I...have a bad feeling about this. It's...almost the same as when I escaped that facility. Like I was going to lose something important,"

Charon's mandibles flattened against his face. Kouta was killed in the breakout attempt. Was she suggesting that he would meet the same fate? His hesitation was apparently evident to Lucy, whose frown deepened.

"Very well. You may come with us," he sighed, his shoulders slumping. His sister would give him hell for this, but it was better than having a potential rampage inside the base. "Corvina said that she had your previous armour packed away to be shipped back to the Citadel. I...intercepted that. Check under your bunk. Throw it on, and I'll meet you in the hangar bay. Our ship is the furthest one to the back,"

* * *

On arrival to the hangar, he noticed that there was a civilian freighter parked in the bay that they had been ordered to. A large crate of munitions was being hauled up into its cargo hold, while a squad of black-armoured kabalim were already waiting inside. There were no markings on the freighter to identify it to any government - or even to a place.

"An undercover mission?" Charon muttered to himself, shaking his head. This was very unorthodox of turian military corps.

"Get inside. We're due to leave soon!" barked a cabalist. One with two gold stripes on her shoulder pad, marking her as an elite operative, "Weapons are all in the back! Move it!"

No sooner had Charon and Lucy entered the freighter's cargo hold did the doors slam shut. A familiar feeling of weightlessness enveloped both of them as the docking clamps disengaged, and they suddenly tumbled backwards when the ship suddenly lurched forward at top speed. The other cabalists snorted and hauled them back up to their feet.

"Charon! What in the Spirits' name are you thinking, bringing Lucy with you?" hissed Corvina.

"She insisted on joining us,"

The elite cabalist from before cocked her head to one side. Narrowing her eyes, she surveyed Lucy with great disapproval. "By these two soldiers' reactions, I assume that you weren't given the order to embark on this mission," growled the cabalist, "Ordinarily, we would abort and return you to the fortress where you would be disciplined for insubordination. However, we are short handed as it stands, and I will not turn down another gun on the team. Fall in line and stand next to your brothers and sisters, auxiliary,"

The diclonius stiffly nodded in response and moved to stand next to Charon. Corvina was still glaring daggers at her brother, though he was doing a particularly admirable job of ignoring her.

"The mission is to extract a number of VIPs from an active combat zone," the elite cabalist shouted, slamming her fist into an open palm with a loud smack, "We are headed into the Terminus Systems. For Omega. And you know what that means; plenty of lowlife scum on site, all of whom would love nothing more than to put a bullet between your eyes. Stay vigilant,"

Murmurs echoed through the ship. Omega was well known to be an off-limits area for all Turian Hierarchy forces; partly due to the prevalence of piracy, and partly due to the fact that the entire region was largely populated by independent warlords, none of whom appreciated the stability and safety of law. "Well, that explains the unmarked vehicle," one of the cabalists commented dryly, "Wished Major Lyssa could have taken us anywhere else, though. Omega isn't a place that I'd want to be. Ever,"

"We have very limited intel regarding this operation. Enemy personnel count and equipment is unknown. We are aware that they are a combination of Blue Suns, Blood Pack and Eclipse mercenaries, however. Expect biotics, combat mechs, and a significant amount of vorcha and krogan,"

"Ma'am, with all due respect," one of them said, "We should be attacking with at least a platoon strength force. If all three of them are present, we'll need a lot of firepower to kill them all,"

Lyssa nodded. "This would be true if our goal was to eliminate all opposing forces. As it stands, however, our goal is to extract the VIPs on site, not to kill every single scumbag on Omega. A larger force than this would attract too much attention from the warlords of the area, and the Hierarchy will not want that. In any event, we are informed that there are potentially armoured units in the area. We have been provided with a Hydra missile launcher with four anti-vehicle rockets in the event that we encounter them. Lieutenant Charon, you are to be in charge of the anti-vehicle detail of this mission,"

"Affirmative," he replied.

Turning to three heavily-built turians leaning against the pilot compartment, she said, "Lilia, Sarris, Prima. You three are tasked with defending this ship from any potential boarders. You know the drill; set up a heavy machinegun inside the ship and make sure nothing gets in or out without my express authorisation,"

Each of them nodded. Satisfied, Lyssa turned to face the rest of the group.

"The rest of you are to carve a path through any opposition on the combat zone. No mercy. No witnesses. No survivors," she continued. Reaching into the weapons crate, she tossed a Carnifex to each cabalist. "Every person you shoot at must be dead by the end of the day. Our involvement must not become public. Are we clear?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Good! Then make sure that your gear is up to scratch. Get some rest, and make sure you're all ready to spill some dishonourable merc blood. Our primary contact for this mission is a young turian of the Palaven Vakarian clan. Blue chevrons below the eyeline. Make sure he lives,"

"Aria, you might want to check this out,"

* * *

"What is it, Anto? I'm busy," grumbled the irritable asari.

"Turian freighter just docked in bay A-41. No registration on the Citadel archives, but it looks too clean for something out of the Terminus,"

"Probably some pirate that got lucky with stealing a fresh ship from a spaceport," she dismissed him, waving her hand. Anto could only grit his teeth in frustration as he continued to watch the video feed on his omni-tool.

The batarian could not help but notice the strange speed and efficiency with which the freighter connected with the docking arm on that floor. It moved much faster and more precisely than any civilian ship that he had ever seen try to dock on Omega.

Military speed and precision.

His suspicions grew when surveillance cameras in the bay showed that a number of heavily armed turians disembarked. Mostly female, with only one male among them. The male carried a large, multiple-barrelled rocket launcher, while the others carried what looked like heavily customised pistols on their hips. Things that no civilian should be able to easily acquire in small quantities, let alone enough to outfit half a dozen people.

He scratched his head. There was a strange, pink-haired human behind them all, wearing what looked to be a suit of armour one size too large for her. Given that the rest of the group was turian, the presence of a human piqued his suspicions a little more.

"I'll have to keep an eye on these...newcomers," he grumbled, pressing the record button on his omni-tool.

* * *

"Hey, hey, you can't just-"

"I will go where I please, boy," snarled Lyssa. Leave it to the merc groups to leave a lookout posted outside their gatherings. Before the Blue Suns mercenary could reach for his pistol, Lyssa had driven a biotically-charged gauntlet blade through his skull.

"Alright. This is where Vakarian is supposed to be under siege. Stick together, and stay to the shadows. Kill silently where you can, and spare no-one," she growled, "Charon, stay behind us. Corvina, you're on point. The rest of you, stick to the shadows and be prepared for a fight. Move out, people,"

The sound of gunfire could be heard from elsewhere in the building. Corvina crept towards the nearest entryway, peeking in carefully.

"Looks clear," she said, moving in with her pistol held at the ready. The others followed suit, also scanning the room for any traps.

A loud explosion sounded from further inside, and Corvina flinched as a salarian's arm flew in through the doorway on the far side. "Damn it, man down!" hollered a rough male voice, followed by a string of colourful curses.

"If we had the _Indomitable_ we could request a deep scan of this location," grumbled Corvina, "Several contacts further in. Four krogan, at least a dozen vorcha. Lots of barricades and cover inside for them, not much for us. It's your call, major,"

"If there's that many, then there's no reason for stealth any more. One heatsink, and four grenades. Give them here," she replied without hesitation. Producing some sort of sticky gel from her omni-tool, she applied a thick coating on one of her heatsinks before pressing the grenades against the gel. With an evil grin on her face, she pressed the detonator on one of them and threw the entire bundle into the room. "Fire in the hole!"

A tremendous explosion shook the entire building as the grenades detonated simultaneously. "Advance!" she roared, charging into the room. The krogan were lying on the ground with various bleeding wounds on their thick hides, while the vorcha had presumably given the entire room a new coat of red. "Kill them all! Take no prisoners!"

Lucy was more than a little mesmerised by the efficiency with which the cabalists worked. The krogan, wounded as they were, tried to charge in vain at the nearest ones that they could see. They fell to the ground with single shots blasted clean through their heads, or claw-blades driven through their skulls. One that was about to charge on an off-balance cabalist was promptly biotically charged by another cabalist, launching him through the opposite wall.

Not a single round was wasted. Not a single movement unnecessary.

It was cold. Clinical. Impersonal.

These were assassins in every sense of the word.

It was...beautiful.

However, assassins were hardly useful in confined spaces when the element of surprise was no longer on their side. Blue-clad human mercenaries started to stream into the next rooms that they could see, unloading a torrent of gunfire on their position through the doorway and the krogan-shaped hole in the wall.

The cabalists immediately dived behind what cover they could find. "No stealth gear here. What's your call, ma'am?" one of them said into comms.

"Charon, drop a drone in the middle of them. Let's see how disciplined they are,"

"Affirmative. Drone out,"

A round black sphere flew through the air and landed in the centre of the room. Several mercenaries cursed loudly when the little drone shot up and began to spray flames and bullets at the nearest targets. "Now!" roared Lyssa, noticing that the storm of bullets targeting them had mostly subsided.

Each of the cabalists glowed blue for a brief moment before they launched themselves forward at blinding speeds. Six mercenaries were caught by surprise and fell to the ground, headless, courtesy of blade-gauntlets held out to the side as they passed. Those that were not killed suddenly found themselves in a deadly melee, with the cabalists far too close for them to use their guns effectively.

Lucy rushed in to assist, though she could not help but wonder just how much training the others had. They dodged and weaved under the mercenaries' blows, delivering their own precise strikes at vital points without missing a beat. It was like watching a dance of death; elegant, swift and beautifully lethal. Blood sprayed from slit throats and severed necks, while others that were not instantly killed lay whimpering on the ground, slowly bleeding out from punctured hearts and lungs.

The fighting continued to push the mercenaries back into a hangar, where several broken-down mechs were still being repaired. Another wave, this time of salarian tech operatives and infiltrators, rushed in from the other side of the hangar. A wall of electrical shocks and incendiary shot rained down upon the cabalists.

"Man down!" Corvina shouted, noting that one of the cabalists had failed to find cover or throw an enemy in the path of the incoming fire. "Major! We'll need to stabilise her,"

"Cover me. Do not yield another inch of ground!"

 _The smell of spilled blood. It gets your own blood pumping, doesn't it? Don't you want to spill some yourself? Bathe yourself in it? Cover yourself in its glory?_

That voice. That compulsion. It was far too strong for Lucy to resist. Coupled with the intoxicating, heady adrenalin coursing through her veins, she stood up and laughed. A high, cold, merciless laugh.

"What in the Spirits' name is she doing? Get down, Lucy!" Corvina hissed.

"Blood. So much blood!" she laughed. She looked at the assembled enemies before her, firing their pitiful weapons. Not a single grain of metal penetrated the vectors held in front of her. For what small arms could pierce that which could deflect even an anti-vehicle shell?

She walked slowly forwards, weathering down the storm of slugs without so much as flinching. Numerous spent heatsinks clattered on the floor, a sign of how many shots they had fired at her to no effect.

"What the hell? Are we even hitting her?" she heard one of them cry out in frustration. A krogan roared and charged at her from one side, rearing his fist back for a punch-

 _Splat._

Only for both his legs and both his arms to explode in a shower of gore. Lucy seized his body with two vectors and lifted it up high, before tearing it into two down the middle and throwing the pieces back at her stunned enemies.

"Pitiful creatures," she spat.

"Fire! Fire at her, you fools!" a salarian screamed, breaking some of his underlings out of their stupor.

Three of the mercenaries thought that they could avoid her wrath by hiding behind a skycar. How wrong they were when she lifted it up and brought it down repeatedly upon their frail bodies. The satisfying crunch of metal on bone were delightful to her ears, and a grin split her face from ear to ear.

"I'm out of heatsinks!"

"Then use your damn omni-tools, you useless sons of varren!"

A powerful shock surged towards her from a salarian, and she heard the barrier generator on her armour short-circuit with a loud snap. Though she was left with a faintly smarting arm, the attack otherwise did very little against her except to annoy her even further.

 _Show these pieces of filth our superiority. They are unfit to live. Unfit to breathe the air that we do. Unfit to even drink the water that we have washed our feet in._

"Eliminate them!" she heard, vaguely registering that the battle cry had come from behind her. Needing no further encouragement, she vaulted high over the lines of the defending mercenaries, causing a few of them to panic when they realised that she was right in their midst.

 _Splat. Splat._

A dozen mercenaries crumpled to the ground in various states of dismemberment. Those that were still standing clutched on to stumps of hands or arms, desperately scrambling away from her in terror. One human, lying prone on the ground, reached out with his remaining blood-covered hand, as though asking for her help.

 _Unworthy._

She lazily unholstered her pistol and fired a clean shot through his head. The weak were unworthy of her presence, fit only to be slaughtered. Picking up the corpse with her vectors, she hurled it at a fleeing mercenary, pinning him down. Of the few remaining mercenaries remaining in the hangar, they slowly lowered their weapons and dropped them, holding up their hands in surrender. Lucy then holstered her pistol. She could see their shoulders slump in relief; how they thought that they would live to fight another day.

 _Splat._

They, too, were crushed to death by her vectors, spraying her liberally with blood in the process.

No mercy. No survivors. No witnesses.

Exactly as Lyssa had instructed.

And by the sound of gunfire from elsewhere in the building, there must be more of the scum to put down.

* * *

"Damn it. I'm down to my last heatsink, and the rest of my squad is dead," Garrus muttered to himself.

His hideout was defensible. So defensible, in fact, that three men had managed to stave off wave after wave of mercenary troops. The mines outside had taken care of the first few waves that had attempted to break through, until the Eclipse had enough sense to send out numerous mechs to safely detonate them. His remaining colleagues – a pair of krogan mercenaries – held out on the ground floor with heavy machineguns, until the tide of Blood Pack vorcha overwhelmed their limited heatsink supplies, and they detonated their grenades to prevent the rest from storming the second floor.

Another bullet whizzed past his head, and he reflexively ducked, cursing loudly.

 _Dad. I really should have listened._

Taking a deep breath, he ran a finger over his sniper rifle. There was one heatsink already loaded, and one more in his hand. He could fire this one, reload, and then fire it once safely – and then once more before the rifle would melt down from excessive heat.

Three shots. Three last kills.

"One last round of target practice, heh," he grunted, hefting the rifle up again.

There was one Eclipse operator on the concrete barrier on the bridge leading in; and two more Blue Suns assault troopers, right behind him. Garrus held his breath, caressing the rifle's trigger. The scope settled once over the salarian's head. A soft pull of the trigger, a muted muzzle blast – and the man's head exploded in a shower of green gore.

Yet despite the death of their ally, the two Blue Suns troopers turned around and were rapidly firing at something inside the building. In fact, the death of their ally seemed to have gone unnoticed. There was a cacophony of panicked screaming inside the building, accompanied by the sharp staccato of numerous assault rifles. All eventually descended into deathly silence, only broken by the cold humming of Omega's many machines.

His jaw went slack when one of the troopers was suddenly bowled over by a large, red-armoured krogan flying at high speed. The body struck the reinforced concrete pillar on the ground floor of his compound with enough force to send tremors through the entire building; and by the bloodstain that was rapidly spreading on the concrete floor, it seemed that the krogan corpse had been pulverised by the impact.

"Spirits," he whispered. That red armour, that enormous size. That was _Garm_. The leader of the Blood Pack on Omega! He had fired at that one-ton krogan for _hours_ on end without doing so much as crippling the beast, and whatever was inside the hangar wielded enough power to kill him as though he were no more than a rabid varren!

The remaining trooper had cast aside his rifle and scrambled clumsily over the concrete barrier. Narrowing his eyes, Garrus slapped in another heatsink and fired, sending the man tumbling to the ground with a shattered kneecap.

If his eyes weren't deceiving him, the reinforced concrete barrier on the hangar's doorway crumbled to dust. And behind it was a strange pink-haired woman in C-Sec standard issue armour, crudely painted over. He knew that humans often dyed their hair in strange colours, but a quick look down his rifle's scope at the woman showed that there was something different about her.

Her eyes. Those irises were a deep, ruby-red colour. A colour that never naturally happens in humans. And the face paint – the red markings were not random. Those were House Carius colours.

She glared at the crippled trooper on the ground and suddenly all that he could see was a fine red mist. Only when he dialled back the zoom did he see that there was no longer a trooper on the ground; a large bloodstain remained where the body once was, bits of bone strewn all across the bridge. As though the body had been exploded by a grenade.

A few turian soldiers in black armour – cabalists, if the ultraviolet paint on their pauldrons was any indication - trailed behind the woman, speaking in a most agitated manner. One more came behind them, a male turian with a heavy rocket launcher in his hands. All of them wore Carius patterns in red, the same as the human woman.

"House Carius," Garrus breathed, "Dad, you didn't...you wouldn't..."

* * *

"Vakarian. Garrus Vakarian, isn't it," the cabalist elite spoke, reading from her omni-tool.

"Last I checked five minutes ago, that was still my name," he chuckled with a grin, though that grin soon faded when he noticed the stern faces of every cabalist in front of him. "So...care to tell me why I've got a squad of the Hierarchy's finest cabalists looking for me?"

"Considering the amount of mercenaries lined up to kill you, you're lucky that your father has sent for help," she growled, no small amount of annoyance in her voice. "Name's Lyssa Carius, of the Cipritine Kabalim Corps. We're here to get you back to Cipritine, whether you want to or not. Specifically, back to the Vakarian residence,"

"Well, that's just cold," he replied dryly, "But...I suppose dad's already worried sick already. Thanks for rescuing me on time. I was out of heatsinks, and against Garm...well, I think I would be in pieces by the time he was done with me. You guys did a real good job with killing that one,"

"You mean the krogan that was pulverised down there?"

"Yeah, that's the one. Last time I fought him, he just shook off sniper rifle rounds like they were little scratches. What did you kill him with, an artillery piece?"

Lyssa frowned and tipped her head towards the pink-haired girl behind her. "You can thank Lucy for that. And for the bloody mess that she's caused in the hangar bay. Don't ask me how she managed to slaughter an entire platoon's worth of mercenaries without even taking a single slug to her armour,"

Garrus surveyed the blood-covered human curiously. There was nothing on her that seemed like it would have had enough firepower to drop a krogan, let alone launch him several metres and knocking over a salarian in the process. Biotics were an option, but Garm was a powerful and ancient krogan battlemaster. His barriers would stand up against most, if not all, biotic abilities.

"I don't like being stared at," she snapped angrily, glaring at Garrus, "If you need to know something, ask. Not like I can possibly have a worse headache, anyway,"

"Sorry. I was curious about how you managed to kill Garm," he apologised, holding up his hands in surrender.

At first, she simply stared at him; and then she turned to the large turian behind her, who nodded slowly in approval. "Fine. Just this once," she huffed, returning her angry glare to Garrus, "When we get back home, I'm taking a nap, Charon. My head is pounding and I can hardly stand,"

The concrete pillar to her side suddenly shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. The metal window frame and reinforced door frame attached to it bent into twisted hunks of steel. Garrus only realised that his mouth was hanging open when he coughed up a few chips of broken cement and dust. "Satisfied?" she growled, clutching her head with one hand.

There was no distinct glow of biotics, nor the energy buildup required for it. Whatever the ability was, it was certainly not biotics. "Well...that was...unique," he coughed, ejecting the last of the cement from his mouth, "I thought that the only human woman with so much capacity for destruction was Commander Shepard. But I guess I stand corrected,"

Her expression shifted into a most disgusted scowl. "Commander Shepard? That woman working for Cerberus?" spat the human woman, "How do you know of her?"

"Know of her? Damn straight I know her! She saved the Citadel when Sovereign invaded. I should know because I was-" Garrus gushed, though her strange reaction stopped him momentarily. "Wait. Cerberus? The human supremacist terrorist group?"

When Lucy nodded sharply, the turian's jaw fell open in shock. "That can't be right," he muttered in disbelief, "The Erin Shepard I know of wouldn't have joined forces with those bigots. I fought at her side during that battle. She dragged me to safety after I took a hit; gave me enough meds to get me up and fighting again. She ordered the Alliance fleets to save the Citadel Council, even when dozens of human ships would be destroyed in the process,"

"She's already tried to recruit me twice on the Citadel. Both times accompanied by Cerberus personnel,"

"I can verify that this is true, Vakarian," Charon spoke, "As will the dozens of eyewitnesses on Silversun Strip at the time. Lucy Carius was involved in an altercation between Spectre Shepard and two other accomplices affiliated with Cerberus, on two separate occasions. Check with Captain Armando Bailey if you would like the official records,"

"There's got to be more to it than that. I'll need to speak to her when I can," Garrus said, shaking his head, "But this really isn't the place to stand and talk, is it?"

"Indeed, it is not the best location to speak of trivial matters. You seem to have been fighting these mercs for longer than we have. Do you have anything on their materiel, troop counts?"

The vigilante scratched his head for a moment. There were hundreds of occasions that he had crossed paths with all three of the mercenary groups that were actively hunting him; and yet, he had only seen glimpses of their actual strength. "Eclipse fielded a lot of FENRIS and LOKI mechs, but those can't really be deployed without support. If you've ripped through their base, you've probably taken them out as well as the refit and rearm stations that they need. Wouldn't surprise me if they had something bigger, too,"

"Right. That explains the YMIR that we encountered in the hangar. That's a smoking wreck, so you can cross that off your list. Along with the ugliest Lystheni salarian this side of the galaxy," one of the cabalists beside Lyssa piped up, glancing at Lucy cautiously.

"That would be Jaroth of the Eclipse. Blood Pack...well, seeing as Garm is already dead, there's not much more to them. Without him around, his vorcha are probably running off scared. That, and the remaining krogan are as likely to kill each other as they would their enemies. But Blue Suns? Every damn time I've hit one of their operations, we had to get the hell out when their boss comes in with his personal gunship. Wait, don't tell me. You took care of two batarians...and a Mantis gunship, in that hangar?"

Lyssa raised a brow and slowly shook her head. "Damn. And here I thought that winter solstice celebrations had come early," sighed Garrus.

A loud scratching noise from Lyssa's omni-tool interrupted them. "Major Lyssa. Our scanners are picking up signs of an aircraft heading to your position. We're also spotting a lot of Eclipse moving towards you from newly landed aircraft,"

"Any further intel, Lilia?" growled Lyssa, her fists clenched.

"Negative, major. Our sensors aren't good enough for any better detail on the scans. By the rate it's coming, it should be at your position in thirty seconds,"

"Copy that. Lyssa out,"

The major then turned to face the cabalists behind her. "You heard them. Defensive positions, now!" she roared, causing her subordinates to snap off a salute and sprint to the nearest tall cover, "Lieutenant Charon, prime the Hydra. All four rockets, armour piercing load, maximum strength. Lucy, stay with Vakarian. Make sure not a single scratch comes to him!"

The soft rumble of a distant engine reached their ears. It was rapidly growing louder and louder; and when the gunship was visible around the corner, it was positively deafening. Garrus reflexively shuddered. He'd heard that damned sound too many times; and every time, at least one of his squad would go down during extraction.

"ARCHANGEL!" a rough, grating voice shouted, amplified by the gunship's external speakers. Garrus turned to face the window, only to be blinded by floodlights. Yet when he heard the telltale whirring of a heavy gun spooling to fire, he threw himself to the floor without hesitation.

Not a moment too soon. A barrage of high-velocity slugs pounded every square inch of the room that was visible from the windows. Chips of concrete fell on his head like water in a rainstorm. He had been in this before. That insane batarian didn't care one bit about the wear and tear of his vehicle when he really wanted someone dead. And he certainly did not lack for ammunition, either.

"Man down!" Charon shouted. Garrus looked up and grimaced when he saw the state of the room. One of the cabalists had not tucked her arms in enough when the batarian madman unleashed his gunship's rotary cannon on the room. One of her arms now dangled limply at her side, held on by the thinnest thread of sinew. Her mouth was agape in shock, and her eyes were staring dumbly at the shivering stump of her all but severed arm.

"Firing! Get down!"

A rocket streaked out of the rocket launcher in the engineer's hands, striking the gunship on one of its wings. White-hot shards of metal shot out from the impact region, along with a steady stream of flaming fuel; yet still the vehicle remained in the air.

The gunship was now turning towards the engineer. Its rotary cannon's barrels were spinning up again with an ominous whirring noise. Charon gritted his teeth and raised the rocket launcher again. He pulled the trigger with a sudden jerk; the second rocket shot wide, smashing into the hangar's walls across the street. The gunship, however, swerved suddenly to one side, causing its weapon to spray wide harmlessly.

"Spirits! It's jammed!" he cursed, pulling the trigger on the weapon repeatedly to no avail.

"I don't know who the hell you guys are, throwing your lot in with Archangel. But you're all going to die today when this damn building comes down on your heads!" the loudspeaker on the vehicle boomed out. The rocket pods on the underside of the gunship's wings opened, revealing their payload of incendiaries and explosives.

And then all hell broke loose. Rockets blasted craters into the floor and walls of the room, engulfing the entire building in flames and shrapnel. Garrus thanked every spirit that he knew of that his shields had been upgraded during Spectre training; most of the shrapnel barely registered on them, plinking harmlessly off his armour. The base's ECM emitters had taken care of the missiles' guidance systems, and many simply veered off course, missing the cabalists by a rather wide margin. One, however, streaked in a wide spiral, zooming straight at Charon. The engineer raised an arm in a futile attempt to block the missile.

A horrified cry pierced Garrus' ears when the explosion engulfed Charon, hurling the man against the balcony railing behind with enough force to crack it. Several fingers and a charred forearm lay in a puddle of blue blood on the floor; the top half of his armour had broken, leaving only a half-melted undersuit.

"Charon!" Lucy cried, rushing to the man's side. His breathing was heavy and laboured, and he was clutching at his ribs with his remaining hand, in what must have been no small amount of agony.

"Finish...the...mission," he growled, glaring at the gunship. The rotary cannon was spooling up again, ready to finish off the critically wounded turian.

Yet Lucy did the unthinkable. Rather than flee and find cover, the woman stood her ground, facing the gunship. Putting herself between Charon and the gunship. The amount of rage in her seemed to radiate in waves, and Garrus found himself with a terrible urge to flee for no apparent reason; and judging by the fearful eyes in every cabalist in the room, he was not the only one to feel it.

"Lucy! Get down!" he shouted at her. She continued to walk toward the gunship, seemingly unperturbed.

Another barrage of rotary cannon fire streaked towards Lucy. Yet the shots veered away from her by some unseen force, embedding themselves in the walls and floor. She looked at the concrete wall beside the window and paused. A shrill, grinding noise filled the air as concrete and metal was torn and ripped with incredible speed; within seconds, a long, spear-like slab of concrete had been carved out of the wall, complete with a sharpened piece of reinforcing metal protruding from its jagged top.

It floated. Floated in front of her. Levitating without any apparent force acting on it, nor the telltale bluish glow of a biotic field.

Wordlessly, she raised a hand up to point at the gunship. The concrete spear rotated so that its point faced the gunship's cockpit. "Die, filth," she snarled viciously, and it shot forward at a blinding speed.

The concrete slab impaled the gunship from cockpit to tail – and continued onwards, collapsing a section of hangar wall before shattering into thousands of pieces. The gunship's fuel cells, damaged by the impact, started a brilliant blue blaze in the rear of the vehicle. Garrus shielded his eyes when the ruptured cells detonated, scattering flaming bits of gunship all around. A small grin formed on his face when he thought about how Tarak – the leader of the Blue Suns on Omega – had just been killed, but he quickly hid that when Lucy turned around.

She was utterly livid.

"Charon," she growled haltingly, carefully saying each word, "He...needs help. Do what you need to do. Lyssa. Anyone,"

Snapping out of her stunned state, Lyssa shook her head and rushed over to Charon's side. She pressed on the ragged stump of his arm to stem the bleeding, drawing an agonised scream from the man. "We need to get him back to the transport. Victoria, administer medi-gel and painkillers to Sofia,"

"Will he...live?"

Lyssa turned to face Lucy, a grim expression on her face. "If he makes it to the transport in ten minutes, there should be a good chance of him surviving. If our initial intel was right, then there should be another group of Blue Suns heading to our position. Foot soldiers, all of them, between here and our initial position. If you can get rid of them, we should be able to make it in five,"

The pink-haired woman fixed a hard glare on the cabalist leader before she slowly nodded. "I will kill them all. Just...make sure he doesn't die,"

* * *

A/N

Garrus, you glorious, sarcastic bastard. What mess did you land into?

gabe: The outside influence, the 'hive mind', actually comes about from the broken mind of every diclonius. It's more prevalent in those that had suffered through more traumatic events; but in general, it's the mental conditioning given by their keepers during the experiments. In the original Elfen Lied story, this would be Director Kanazawa torturing every diclonius, likely reinforced by subtle messages about how much humans feared them and how the diclonius were supposed to be superior. In this case, Cerberus is developing an ultimate biological supersoldier/superweapon. What good would a superweapon be, if it had moral qualms about killing? It has to be ruthless and bloodthirsty, killing whatever it's pointed at.

Nana, naturally, is still too young to have undergone enough mental conditioning to be as affected as Lucy.

Next up: The will to power, and what drives it.


	14. 14 - The Will to Power

It took every bit of willpower Lucy had to not lash out at anybody near her during the flight home to Palaven. Although she was sitting next to the pilot to save her from having to see Charon and the other wounded soldiers being field-treated, she could still hear their agonised screams through the cargo bay's walls. The medical kit that Lyssa had salvaged from inside the remains of Garrus' base was filled with all manner of horrifyingly sharp instruments.

Instruments that seemed as likely to be used to kill someone as they were to save them.

"I still don't know if she's trying to kill him or to save him," Lucy murmured, shaking her head, as Charon screamed again in pain, "Don't you have some...something...to stop the pain?"

"I don't know. I'm not a trained medic, but Major Lyssa is one of the best field surgeons that we've got on hand," the pilot replied, glancing at Lucy, "If she's keeping him off the painkillers, there must be something stopping her from putting him under. I mean, she's got a bit of a mean streak, but that doesn't mean that she wants to torture us if she wants to,"

Another ear-splitting scream filled the ship. Lucy's fists clenched, and she curled up on her seat. It had been almost half an hour that she had to listen to the wounded scream in pain. Why did it bring her so much pain, so much grief? The screams of the enemy wounded on the battlefield were music to her ears, and the sight of blood was beautiful to her. Yet the sight of her teammates being operated upon very nearly caused her to throw Lyssa across the room for even thinking of bringing those scalpels down on them!

"...Spirits, I don't know how much more I can take of this," she cursed, burying her head into her knees.

"You worry about him. We worry about him too, sister. And the other ones, too. We'll be in Palaven orbit in about ten minutes. Can you hold on for that long?"

She felt something soft tap against her knee. Lifting her head slightly, she saw that the pilot had offered her a hand. Uncertainly, she took it in hers.

"I'm flying the ship as fast as it will go. As it is, I'll probably break the drive core on landing, but if it'll save the lives of the wounded, it'll be worth the hours spent repairing this ship," he explained, "But seeing you like this, thinking about all the worst possible things that could happen to them...it helps nobody. If he is...more than a brother to you...it might probably be better if you were there to give him some comfort,"

"Comfort?" she asked, not knowing what the man meant.

"Having somebody familiar to talk to or to even be around with tends to get people to calm down. You don't have to go in there, of course, but...oh, never mind. Do what you like,"

The pilot resumed his duties, leaving a very confused Lucy in the copilot's seat.

 _What did he mean by that, s_ he wondered. Standing up, she resolved to go into the cargo hold. Where Lyssa was operating.

"He's done a lot for me, I should...I should do the same back for him," she whispered under her breath.

The smell of antiseptic almost threw Lucy off her feet the moment that the cargo bay's door opened. The three wounded members of the team were laid out on stretchers on the floor. Both of the wounded cabalists were soundly sleeping; one had a tightly-wound bandage around her head, while the other had what looked like a blue plastic sphere jammed tightly against the stub of her upper arm. Copious amounts of blue blood pooled around both of them, though Lucy could swear that the one with a missing arm smelled strongly of burnt flesh and blood.

Charon sat in the leftmost stretcher. His jaw was set, biting on a plastic stick, as Lyssa scraped away charred tissue from his all but destroyed arm with expert precision. A muffled scream escaped his throat whenever she disturbed a fragment of ceramic or metal still embedded in his flesh. "Isn't there anything you can do to...stop the pain?" Lucy asked, slowly approaching the two.

"No, auxiliary, unfortunately not," Lyssa murmured sadly, "If his wounds were simpler to treat, I would. But as it is, I need him awake and alert,"

Another stifled groan came from Charon when the medic extracted another long piece of twisted metal from his arm. "The rocket did a real job on his body. Half his ribs are cracked, and it's a miracle they haven't punctured his lungs. I scanned him earlier, and there's some swelling on the back of his skull. Not good,"

"So why can't you...do the same as you did with the others? They're asleep, aren't they?" Lucy demanded, "Aren't you supposed to be-"

Lyssa whipped around and glared at the diclonius. "Watch how you speak to me, auxiliary. I still outrank you here," she growled heatedly. Her expression, however, softened, and she added, "I know how attached to him you are. But as it is, there's a good chance that the hard impact on his skull might have done something to his brains. I need him alert so that I know if he starts seeing things, or if his cognitive functions decline,"

Charon's eyes were looking at Lucy, pleading with her. Slowly, the diclonius nodded, her shoulders slumping. She had no idea about the extent of his injuries. And even if she knew, she would not have known what to do. As much as the voice inside her head was screaming to throw Lyssa across the room, she knew that the woman was the only one keeping Charon stable and alive. Doing that could only harm him.

So she did the only thing she could. She knelt down and took Charon's remaining hand in hers. Humming the only tune that she knew of, hoping that it would bring him some measure of comfort.

* * *

"Patriarch Vakarian,"

"Quinta Carius. I...trust that you have some news for me? Regarding the issue of my foolish son?"

The matriarch of House Carius paced about in front of the camera on her desk. "As a matter of fact, I do," she said softly, "Your son has arrived safely in Tartarus, and is currently being treated for minor wounds,"

The elder Vakarian sighed in relief. "Excellent. Were there...complications...in evacuating him from Omega?"

"Indeed there were. If three of the most ruthless mercenary groups in the Terminus Systems have banded together to eliminate your son, you can be certain that the extraction team's opposition was numerous. Of a team of six deployed to ensure your son's safety – plus one stowaway, I might add – three of my soldiers were critically wounded. Two will require a prosthetic limb once they recover, and the third has sustained a serious cranial injury. In the future, kindly remind your son that he is fortunate enough to have a father who is willing to go to great lengths to protect him, and that he should not squander such a gift,"

Cadmus shook his head. "I will make sure that the boy knows, though I doubt that he would change his ways. He is too obsessed with obtaining 'justice'. Justice! There can be no justice without law, and yet that boy seems to think himself better able to dispense it by flagrantly disregarding due process,"

"For the sake of our friendship, I will ignore that last comment, Cadmus. You know as well as any that House Carius cares not for laws if it will result in the suffering of innocents, be they gifted or normal," spoke Quinta coldly.

"That is true. I speak out of turn," Cadmus replied quickly, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. "Now, I believe that every request that is fulfilled must be repaid. How much do I owe you?"

"Your attention to your debt is noted. Clan Vakarian has provided us with a way to deal with a...problem in our ranks as well, with this recently resolved issue. You may hold your debts annulled,"

If Cadmus' jaw could fall any further, it would have hit the floor – and perhaps beyond. "Excuse me?" he choked out after half a minute, stunned.

Quinta frowned. It was disheartening to see how other clans seemed to have evolved. Accepting or offering things as crude as money for deeds to be done for them, instead of fostering goodwill between clans as had been done in centuries past. They still adhered to the old turian ways. Honour, truth and justice above all; things that seemed to become ever more forgotten as the newer generations rise.

"Nothing that you should concern yourself about. Now, is there anything else that you require?"

"I..." Cadmus started, though he immediately schooled his features into an impassive mask. "No, that would be all. Thank you for your assistance with this matter,"

"Then, I bid you good day. Spirits keep you safe,"

"And to you too, Quinta,"

As the comlink closed, Quinta found herself staring at the surveillance feeds from the garrison's hospital. There was her grandson, still in a medically-induced coma after they had attached a cybernetics interface on what was left of his right arm. She had to admit that the wounds were worse than she had expected; but one did not get to become the head of House Carius without seeing one's share of casualties, of one's own family or otherwise. A flesh wound was one that could be healed, and the boy would live.

Near him was the pink-haired girl that he had inducted into her House, seated on a chair beside him. She still held his remaining hand in hers; a notable change from her irreverent and often indifferent behaviour of previous days. The matriarch of House Carius smiled a little at the sight. She had correctly guessed that the girl could not bear to leave his side, and the mission seemed to have changed her ways somewhat.

Perhaps it was time to see if she had truly changed, and that she could behave as befits the name of her House.

"Lucia. Lucia Carius, I require your presence in my private quarters," she spoke into the surveillance system's microphone, "Please proceed when you are able to,"

* * *

"Lucia. Please, have a seat," Quinta said, waving her hand towards a plush cushioned chair.

Lucy slowly sat down on the offered seat, wondering what the ancient turian had in mind. She seemed to be oddly unaffected by how seriously wounded her grandson was, all things considered. Lyssa had said that the first thing Quinta asked for was a debriefing on their mission, and she was certain that the elite cabalist would have reported exactly how serious his injuries were.

"I have...heard of what happened in the mission. You were not ordered to join in this rescue mission. And yet, you did so of your own accord, without an order from your superior," spoke Quinta, pacing in front of her. Stopping, she held her arms out to the side. "I must ask. Why have you done that?"

That was not exactly what Lucy had thought the turian would ask. Why would she care about her reasons? "I...felt that he would be in danger if I did not come. So I came with him. Insisted that I will come, whether or not he would allow it," she replied. Sullenly, she added in barely a whisper, "He still got hit by a rocket to the arm,"

"And that he did. Gravely injured, but stable and should recover. Major Lyssa has performed admirably in stabilising his wounds, given the shortage of provided medical supplies. With the arrival of a cybernetic limb in the next few days, he would be able to return to active duty in under a month,"

A wave of relief washed over Lucy when she heard that Charon would not be one-armed for long. "That's good. I thought that...that he would be...like that. Forever. Unable to hold things as he used to. Unable to do the things he enjoyed,"

"Tell me, child. Why do you care for my grandson to such an extent?" Quinta asked, tilting her head.

Lucy froze, mortified. She did not mean to blurt that out. "He took me into his house when I had nowhere to go," she sighed. Maybe it was best that she said everything now. "He listened to what I had to say. What I wanted to do. I...I suppose I only wanted to return to him what he gave to me,"

"A fair answer. Gratitude is a normal response to kindness. But to have such a strong response as to follow him into a battlefield, risking life and limb, without any orders to compel you to do so? I believe that goes beyond gratitude,"

Quinta stood up, sighing. "But I suppose, given your...less than pleasant upbringing...perhaps you do not understand. To myself, however, it appears most like a display of love for him,"

At these words, the pink-haired girl choked. "L-love? Him? No, no, no, that's not..." she stammered, blushing furiously. It was true that his physique was somewhat pleasing to the eye – despite the obvious differences in species between herself and him – but she could not imagine herself being...with him. That was a bit too...far.

Quinta apparently picked up on her embarrassment quickly enough, for she soon burst into quiet laughter. "Spirits, no, I did not mean it that way. I am sure that he views you as something akin to a younger sister that he adores very much, given how he speaks of you. He worries about you; about your thoughts, about your actions, especially of late,"

 _Of late? Did she mean recently...?_

"He has confided in the dead of night that you have been searching for information about what the humans call the First Contact War. Or, as the Turian Hierarchy calls it, the Relay 314 Incident. He has also described how you do not know how we turians tolerate humans, even after all that has transpired between our races,"

Quinta took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she resumed speaking, there was a slight keening in her subharmonics; as though she were weeping for someone. "I was observing the reports from that war. Countless dead on both sides. Some of the turians that died that day were good friends of mine. Others were long-time family allies. Entire companies were slaughtered on foreign soil. Brothers and sisters, sons and daughters would never see their kin again. And more than a few turian cruisers and frigates were lost, complete with their crew. You have probably heard reports similar to this on the extranet, have you not?"

"Yes, I have," Lucy replied.

"Very well. I will ask you this; if you were one of the turians who had lost one of your comrades in battle, what would you do?"

"I'd kill the human that killed him,"

"And if that comrade was dear to you? Say...if Charon was the one that died?"

"I-" Lucy said hesitantly, "I'd—I'd kill them all,"

She had no idea _why_ these questions were even necessary. Or what they were even supposed to mean. Revenge seemed like a natural enough response, and yet...

"Yes. That would be exactly what I would have done in my youth," Quinta said mournfully, "An eye for an eye. Exacting retribution for a slight, perceived or otherwise. However, suppose you were a human whose friend had been killed, and you sought to do the same back to the turians. Suppose you succeeded. The cycle of revenge would continue indefinitely until one side is completely annihilated. Revenge for the sake of revenge serves no purpose. And once it has run its course, what then? Would you wade through the oceans of blood that you have spilled, only to find nobody is with you any longer?"

Quinta coughed and reached for a glass of water on her desk. "I should certainly hope that you would not. Do you realise why you would seek revenge for the death of another? You live so that you may enjoy their company. To hear their voice, share in their joy, to support them through their times of grief. You lived to love them, as they did for you. And as they were taken away from you, you, in grief, wished to destroy the source of this grief. Does this sound familiar?"

She raised a hand and began to list off events with her fingers. "You arrived on the Citadel with nothing, and Charon took you in. He spoke to you when others would not – or could not. You played war games with him in Armax Arsenal's simulator on that space station, partaking in one of the few activities that he enjoyed so very much. And then when he was severely wounded in the mission you had participated in, you protected him from further harm by risking your own life and limb to do so,"

By the time the older woman had finished speaking, Lucy closed her eyes, feeling tears wash down her cheeks. It made sense now. How her rage at Cerberus had formed, and how she had felt such overwhelming power grow within herself when she saw Charon wounded on Omega. She loved Kouta at the time, and yet he was taken away from her before his time; and her heart desired nothing more than the destruction of those who had taken him away from her. It gave her purpose, as twisted as it was. A purpose to destroy. A purpose to kill. A purpose to avenge.

And yet, even if she destroyed Cerberus – Kouta was dead. He would not come back; to smile at her antics, to laugh, to cry, to share her pain and joy. Spilling blood in his name would not resurrect him. He was dead.

If she destroyed Cerberus out of vindictive rage? It would not bring him back. It would not return to her the years of life that she had been in captivity. It would not remove the torment that plagued her mind.

Charon, however, was still alive. She owed it to him that she was fed and clothed. She owed it to him that she had a friend to speak with. A brother to stand side by side with, for better or worse. He gave her another purpose. A purpose to live. A purpose to defend. A purpose to protect.

 _You are the queen of destruction. You do not need to defend any of these peasants!_ The voice in her head shrieked.

 _Shut up._

"Tears do not befit a warrior of House Carius, Lucia. Stand up," Quinta spoke softly, wiping her cheek with a broad thumb. Slowly, Lucy stood up, looking the woman in the eye.

"I suspect that you have finally realised what it means to be one of us. We are...not the most respected of people on Palaven. We each have our share of dark deeds. Things that should never be mentioned, and powers that make us feared by most of the other turians at large. The tasks we perform are often distasteful for those that work within the ranks of the Hierarchy. And yet we endure this willingly,"

Dark energies wreathed around Quinta's fingers and vanished as soon as they had appeared. "You must know that there are only three truths to being one of the family. One is that we serve the Hierarchy without actually serving it, in the defense of the people of Palaven. Our allegiance is to the people, not the leaders. The love for your fellow man must become greater than all else, for who are more deserving of protection than those who stand beside you?"

She then looked at the set of ancient scales on her bedside table. It was finely wrought of black iron, with a number of golden weights stacked neatly to one side. "The second is that we stand for justice. True justice, unfettered by the labyrinth of law. The guilty must be punished, the oppressed must be liberated, and the poor and the weak be given aid. For the strength of any chain is determined by its weakest link, and those who are treated justly shall not have a reason to seek retribution against another brother or sister,"

"And the last...?"

"Honour," Quinta spoke, "We speak the truth when asked. We will never lie. We will never cheat. We will always repay our debts. We do not kill those undeserving of death. And may the Spirits have mercy on those that cross our paths with treachery, for we will not. Now, do you understand what it means to be one of us? To be a true member of House Carius?"

Lucy remained silent. The battle on Omega – the rescue – had given her a new perspective on what truly mattered to her. The past and those who had died for her and by her hand may have shaped her; but it was those still present that truly mattered and would shape her future. If, of course, she would allow it, and the embers of rage in her heart would not ignite once more.

"I suppose silence is as good a response as I could expect. Go on, then; I believe that Charon should be awakening soon from his sedatives. You should be with him when he wakes up,"

* * *

A/N:

A shortish chapter this time around. For the subject matter at hand, there is no reason to make it any longer than this.

Next: Burying the hatchet to deal with a greater threat. Or, as most of you would know it; the enemy of my enemy is my friend (even if he/she used to be my enemy).

Panzer4life:

Turian bashes are common mostly in First Contact scenarios where they are often portrayed as ruthless warmongers. They're actually peacekeepers for most part (except when you have psychotics like Saren and his brother), and most wouldn't necessarily condone invasions on a newly discovered alien race. Good to hear that you're enjoying the story.

zealous specter:

I heard you the first time, the second time, and the (n-1)th time, and the (n)th time about FShep / Lucy. The two are diametrically opposed and it won't work in the framework of this story. It'd be like saying Jack and Miranda could avoid throttling each other while making out. And while I'm not opposed to the idea of lesbianism/gays, Lucy is quite definitively straight in this.


	15. 15 - Chasing Echoes

"What do you mean, Archangel is _gone_?" Shepard half-shouted at Aria, drawing a few glares from her bodyguards.

"I meant what I said, Shepard. Blue Suns, Blood Pack and Eclipse all attacked his base," she replied harshly, "And I have _him_ to thank for the huge mess he left behind in Kima District. If you were trying to get to him, he's gotten off this station several hours ago,"

Now Shepard was well and truly perplexed. Nothing that Aria was saying made any sense to her. If the three largest mercenary groups in Omega banded together to get rid of him, that was a vast number of enemies for a single man and his crew to eliminate. Even with her old crew on the first _Normandy_ , such a feat would be extremely difficult. The fact that Aria mentioned that he had gotten away from the station indicated that he was unharmed, or at least was well enough to escape a station filled with hostile individuals.

"Do you know where he was headed?" asked the Spectre, now dearly hoping that her short break to fetch Gardner some ingredients did not cost her another lead for her squad.

"Don't know. And don't care. Didn't bother stopping him or his rescuers. As long as they don't come back onto Omega, I couldn't care less,"

"If you're so interested in him, Commander, then maybe you should know that his rescuers were very well equipped and heavily armed," Anto spoke from beside Aria, pulling out a datapad and passing it to Shepard, "I tracked them on Omega's surveillance network. Came in a ship that looked like a civilian freighter that was too clean for the Terminus Systems, had a heavy machine gun emplacement inside its cargo bay, and was filled to the brim with heavy weapons. Almost all of the crew were turian, and most of them used biotics,"

"Another mercenary group? Or Hierarchy Blackwatch?" Shepard murmured, looking at the surveillance video recording. Sure enough, there were half a dozen turians disembarking from the ship, covered from head to toe in jet-black armour. One wore gold rank stripes on her shoulder, indicating a ranked hierarchy. The only male turian in the group carried a large rocket launcher on his back, one that she swore she had seen in a military catalogue in Spectre requisitions before. But nothing prepared her for the shock of seeing the last member of the group marching down the ship's cargo ramp.

"No. That's impossible," she mouthed.

That waist-length pink hair. Those crimson eyes. That was _Lucy_.

The male turian's build looked familiar to her. If that was Lucy, then he would be that C-Sec officer. But what was a C-Sec officer doing on Omega, of all places? Being in C-Sec was already enough to put someone in the crosshairs of a crime lord on the Citadel. But to visit Omega? The man must have a death wish!

"Someone you recognised, Shepard?" Aria asked, frowning.

"Yeah. There wasn't a...mass killing, was there?" she replied. That girl had a short fuse to rival Wrex, with a bloodthirsty streak to match.

"If by mass killing, you mean turning half of the three largest merc bands into paste," Anto chuckled dryly, taking back his datapad and switching to a recording from inside the mercenary staging post, "Then yes, there was a mass killing. We've locked down that district until the vorcha can lick the floors and walls clean,"

Shepard stared in disbelief at the sheer carnage unfolding on the security recording. An entire platoon-strength wave of mixed mercenaries rushed into the room, firing their weapons at the pink-haired girl. Yet she simply sprinted towards them, seemingly unharmed; the kinetic barriers on her armour did not even flare up, and yet she could see that the blue streaks of disruptor slugs simply veered off whenever they flew too close to her. Within minutes, the entire group had been reduced to bloody chunks of flesh, with those that tried to flee being given no quarter.

But what caught her attention more was the later part of the recording. Two of the black-armoured turians following Lucy were carrying their wounded. One was an unknown female without an apparent rank, and the other was the one that she believed to be that C-Sec lieutenant. And a single new turian male behind them was all too familiar to her.

That blue armour. That heavily modified Mantis. Even the heavy scarring on the front of that old C-Sec standard armour. The blue markings on his face.

"Garrus?" Shepard gasped. There was no mistaking him for anybody else.

She could not fathom just _why_ Garrus would be on Omega. Or why a squad of apparently highly-trained turians would be sent to retrieve him, with Lucy in tow no less. She needed to get to the bottom of this, and fast.

* * *

Charon groaned and stirred. He was lying on something soft and comforting, though it smelled strongly of antiseptic. A relief from the relentless sunlight beating down on his face came when a cool breeze brushed over him, though it was but for a brief moment.

"So, back to the land of the living?" a sarcastic turian voice called from his left. It was immediately followed by a resounding thwack of flesh against facial plate. "Ow! What was that for?"

"He never died, Vakarian," Lucy said sharply. Her face loomed over his; there was a smile of genuine relief on her face. As much as he wanted to return one of his own, he found that his head was tightly bandaged and held in a rigid plaster cast.

He tried to reach for a glass of water on his right side. No arm came into view; again and again he tried, until he finally realised that the doctors must have amputated it. Sighing, he fell back into the bed.

"How severe is it?" Charon tried to speak, though his voice came out slurred and muffled. His mind was still clouded by the anaesthetics that he had been given.

Garrus nodded slowly, understanding precisely what he was trying to ask. "Well, let's see. A rocket to the arm, thrown across the room and hitting the back of your head on the wall," the sniper listed off on his fingers, "And a barrage of autocannon rounds. Well, maybe not the autocannon rounds, because your...well, Lucy...deflected them. All things considered, you look pretty damn fine. Missing a mandible and an arm, got some fractures on your skull that the doctor had to patch up. But hey, girls really love those scars,"

"Shut up. He...I...we're not like that," growled Lucy, blushing furiously when she caught Garrus' playful wink. "Anyway. I'm...glad that you survived,"

Charon said nothing. Losing a mandible, while painful, was tolerable. Many other turian soldiers had lost one or both in the line of duty. Losing an arm, however, could very well spell the end of his career. Even with the best of cybernetic prosthetics, the fine control required for equipment maintenance was extremely difficult indeed, if others were to be believed.

Not to mention that creating custom modifications for equipment would become next to impossible.

"Quinta said that you'll be getting a 'cybernetic limb' in a few days," Lucy said quietly. Her expression shifted to confusion when Charon showed no sign of joy at hearing those words.

He sighed. He'd overcome difficulties before during his tinkering sessions. He will simply have to overcome these limitations once he has the prosthetics. Just like he did with other problems. "I will have to thank her for that later. For now, I suppose I must...thank you for clearing a path for the team," he said, forcing a shade of thankfulness into his voice, "I think...I need to rest,"

He closed his eyes, barely registering something soft and warm pressing against his remaining arm. It brought to his mind a semblance of comfort, and he had a fleeting desire to reach it with his missing arm before the blissful void of sleep claimed him again.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the maintenance hangars of the fortress, a certain purple-haired girl had wandered in along with a group of female cabalists. They were still in exercise gear, having only just finished the last run around the entire fortress. With the usual showers on the ground floor barracks temporarily unavailable due to repairs, their only options were those in the engineering wing of the building.

Which so happened to be right outside of the aircraft maintenance bays. Nana, never having seen much of anything in her life, stared with wide-eyed wonder when a fighter was slowly wheeled into a waiting docking clamp. The engines switched off with a soft whine when the clamps had finished latching onto the vehicle's anchoring hooks. Several engineers approached with a trolley full of tools; one in particular was dragging along a mobile crane behind him.

"Nana, it will be some time before the other females finish cleaning themselves. You wish to see those fighters up close, hm?" one of the older cabalists hummed, observing just how intently Nana was staring at how the vehicle was being systematically stripped of damaged armour plating.

Nana nodded excitedly, earning an amused chuckle from the cabalist. "Nana wants to see it. This is new to Nana,"

The cabalist shook in silent laughter. The girl, despite looking like a young adult human, had the inquisitive mind of a child. It was endearing to most of them, who had never seen someone so...innocent. Someone who had not been worn and hardened by the cares of the world. "I suppose that I do not have much to do at this time. Come with me, I will take you to it,"

The young diclonius' mouth gaped when she drew closer to the vehicle, now stripped down to its unarmoured chassis. All the complicated machinery beneath was showing; a tangled jungle of cabling and pipes, metal and plastic. Only a single pock-marked armour plate remained on the underside of the vehicle, which stubbornly refused to budge despite the best efforts of the engineers tasked on it. She could only wonder _how_ a person could think of making something this complicated – something so heavy, something so large – and yet, still make it fly as though it weighed very little.

"You like what you see, kiddo?" chuckled a turian engineer, turning away from the fighter to greet the girl.

"M-hm!" Nana squeaked, "It's very interesting! Nana wonders what sir is doing to it,"

"Well, one of our flyer boys caught some smugglers packing heat the other day above Cipritine. We're trying to remove all the armour so we can have new plates installed, but this here isn't coming off so easily," hummed the man, "Name's Vittorius. I remember you, from that ceremony a few days back. Nana, right? And you are...?"

"Caelia, brother,"

"Right. Well, Caelia, Nana; I'd like to cut this plate away with fusion cutters, but I think some of my colleagues said that it's not exactly possible to do that with the latest armour plates we've started producing," rumbled Vittorius, glancing at the vehicle. Three of his colleagues were slowly chipping away at the stuck plate with white-hot plasma torches, though it seemed as though they were making little progress. "Say, Caelia. You're a cabalist, aren't you? Reckon you can use a warp on that plate and loosen it up a bit for us?"

The cabalist shook her head. "No, brother Vittorius. I am afraid that my control over my abilities are not as fine as asari. I would be likely to damage the entire ship if I were to try,"

"Nana can help!"

The two adults then looked at Nana, each with a raised brow ridge. "Nana can help cut the metal,"

With the other engineers now cursing and ranting with how their cutters were hardly making an impression on the metal, Vittorius supposed that there could be no harm in letting a young human try to work on the small ship. After all, she didn't appear to be a highly trained or powerful biotic; how much harm could she do to a military vessel?

"Well, if you think you can do it, kiddo, be my guest," Vittorius replied, shrugging. He pointed at a detached plate's edge, putting a finger and his thumb about an inch apart, "Plates are about that thick. Don't cut the chassis now, you hear?"

"Yep!" the cheerful girl quipped, skipping over to the parked fighter. Vittorius motioned for the other engineers to back away from the girl, which they did after some quiet cursing under their breaths.

She looked at the damaged plating and pursed her lips, willing her vectors to touch the surface of the metal. At first, it almost appeared as though nothing had happened. Nana looked as though she was simply staring at the pockmarked metal, tongue loosely gripped between her teeth.

Seconds ticked by. And then a minute. Two minutes. Nana still wore a look of deep concentration, grimacing every so often; but neither the ship's damaged plating nor the girl were moving. All the engineers around were looking in confusion at the purple-haired girl, as did the cabalist beside her.

"Got it!" she quipped happily, after a few moments more.

The armour plate squealed and screeched as its edges were torn to ribbons by what appeared to be an invisible force. Hardened steel bolts crumbled to dust and fell to the floor, one at a time; composite ceramic armour cracked and shattered into tiny shards. Eventually, the entire plate fell away, hovering about two feet above the ground without so much as a single thread holding it up. It drifted slowly to one side, falling with a loud clang to rest beside the rest of the already detached pieces.

"Holy shit," Vittorius choked out, approaching the ship and running his fingers over the now-exposed frame. Shocked murmurs came from the other engineers present as well, clearly indicating that he was not the only one to be surprised by the young girl's abilities.

Even Caelia's mandibles tightened in confusion. "Those were not biotics," she spoke, crossing her arms, "Biotics do not make clean cuts like those. What were those, Nana?"

"Nana doesn't understand. Did Nana do something wrong?" asked the girl, shrinking away, puzzled by the looks that the other turians were giving her, "Nana just used her arms to pull apart the metal as sir wanted,"

"No, Nana, you didn't do nothing wrong," Vittorius quickly said, "It's...well, colour me impressed. Plasma torches would take damn near ten minutes to cut that loose, and you just...ripped it out. I'd say that the engineering boys owe you a drink or two for making their jobs that much easier. Say, Quinta hasn't given you a job yet, has she? You look interested in these ships, and I'm always after a few hands to help with things like that,"

Caelia coughed at the suggestion. "With all due respect, Vittorius, I do believe that is a terrible idea. Nana, these...hands. When I was informed by Quinta that you had some special abilities, I believed that she had meant that you had exceptional control over biotics. But evidently, you seem to have something else _other_ than biotics,"

 _Something unknown_ , Caelia thought. _Something powerful. Something that she needed to discuss with Quinta. If she could do this without training, then I fear what she could do without guidance._

* * *

"Mr. Vakarian. My scans show that you're mostly healthy, though slightly underfed. If you will not take to the field in the next two weeks and eat as much as an adult male turian should, it would greatly benefit your health," Lyssa spoke calmly, reading from her omni-tool. Switching it off, she clasped her hands behind her back. "I trust that you will not be raiding another compound in the Terminus Systems anytime soon?"

"Well, I don't know about that. I'm missing the adrenaline rush, the near-death experiences, and getting thrown into nearly suicidal situations every day," he replied sarcastically.

"I suppose it helps with keeping one feel alive. Or very much dead, on occasion," the medic sniped back, "C-Sec does not provide enough live fire exercises to keep their agents well-trained. But I suppose that eradicating the geth threat with Commander Shepard has kept you in shape,"

"You don't know half of it," snickered Garrus, "Well, maybe. Killing the Reaper threatening the Citadel for a warm-up has to count for something,"

Lyssa snorted in amusement at Garrus' comment. She had heard of how...unique...the Vakarian scion was; but his apparently limitless bravado still caught her off-guard. A Reaper as a warm-up exercise? That was outlandish just to even _think_ about, let alone to speak out loud.

"Well, as long as you don't end up aggravating all of the mercenary bands in the known galaxy, you should be fine. It is night, and the grounds are under curfew. You will be permitted to leave in the morning. Now, good night, Mr. Vakarian,"

Garrus sighed contentedly as he fell back into the hospital bed. Turian military training taught you that rations were almost indigestible, beds were practically rocks, and water always tasted like it had been taken from an Elcor's toilet. Omega had proven that training true once again, and he was content to relax for a while in the hospital wing of Tartarus. At least the beds were soft, the food was edible, and the water actually tasted like water for once.

That, and the place was quiet at night. The only noise that was still present was coming from the quiet snoring of other patients.

"I think you need to sleep,"

Or so he thought. "And here I thought my charm was incredible, but it looks like Charon is in a league of his own, keeping someone to look over him through the night," joked the turian.

Lucy muttered something angrily under her breath before she slapped Garrus hard on the mandible. "Alright. Maybe I stepped over that line just a little. Ouch," he groaned, wincing when he put a hand on the smarting body part.

The two of them remained in an awkward silence. Garrus, for once in his life, did not know _how_ to open a conversation with the rather ill-tempered girl. And Lucy was still fuming with the constant insinuations that the turian sniper was making. It was only when the first of Menae's light shone on her face that he could see the suspicious glare that she was giving him.

"Did I...do something wrong?" he asked, somewhat unnerved. Lucy sat more stiffly in her chair when he said those words, but her glare softened slightly.

"No. _You_ didn't do anything wrong," she sighed, "Maybe. Maybe not. I don't even know,"

"Well, seeing as we both don't look like we're about to sleep, maybe we can have a chat,"

"About?"

"I don't know. Anything,"

More silence. Lucy's frown only deepened. "I heard about you. From Lyssa. Apparently, you were one of the ones following Commander Shepard when the...Reapers...attacked,"

Garrus nodded slowly. That was one of the highlights of his career. Following a Spectre to indict another Spectre of wrongdoing – and actually getting it done, much to C-Sec's chagrin.

"Why?"

"Does a man need to have a reason for doing something that's right?" he replied, shrugging, "Shepard was the only person doing the right thing. I couldn't do anything in C-Sec without being tied down by all the paperwork. Couldn't even go after a Spectre that I _knew_ was doing something wrong, just because I don't have the evidence on me at the time. She...she was different. She went after Saren, even when the Council and the others said otherwise,"

A smug smile crept on his face. "And they had to eat their own words when she bailed them out at the end of it. Broke through the geth and Reaper lines with the Alliance's own fleet. On her orders, too!"

"So, you're saying that this Shepard doesn't hate non-humans?" asked Lucy.

"If she did, then I'd have more luck trying to land Lieutenant Williams than her," chuckled Garrus, "No. She treated all her crew members equally, human or not. Hell, her best drinking buddy was Wrex, a krogan! And I was always asked to watch over her back, no matter what ridiculous mission she went on-"

Lucy's frown deepened as she tuned out of what Garrus was saying. None of this was making any sense. Cerberus was a group dedicated to human supremacy, at the expense of every other race in the galaxy. Shepard was with Cerberus. She even had a Cerberus ship, and at least two Cerberus officers with her. Yet Garrus was here, saying that she was a friend to aliens, and had even sacrificed human lives to save the multi-species Citadel Council.

"-but she died two years ago," Garrus said sullenly.

"Died? No, you're wrong," Lucy scoffed, believing that the turian was either mad or bluffing.

But the outraged snarl he replied with caught her off-guard. "Wrong? I was _there_ when they put her coffin in the ground. When they put her whole _crew_ in the ground. After they found what bits of the _SSV Normandy_ they could over Alchera, that wasn't either burned or the size of a shoebox. All of them died that day. _All_ of them. They couldn't even find a body to put in her coffin because-"

"They could not find a body because she was alive, Officer Vakarian," Charon's voice rumbled from beside the two; accompanied by a soft rustle as the turian sat up in his bed, "Spirits. I wish to rest, but your raised voices certainly make this difficult. Lucy, I do expect that you show a little more respect for those who are still grieving their losses, as others would for you,"

"Sorry," she muttered, bowing her head.

"And Vakarian. I should likewise expect that you keep your temper in check. If you insist on knowing the truth, however; Spectre Shepard is very much alive and well,"

The turian sniper's jaw dropped. "She...she's alive?" he gasped out after a few seconds, "Where?"

"She tried to convince me to join her," growled Lucy, "Tried to convince me to join Cerberus,"

"Cerberus. The human supremacist group? Really?"

"Lucy. That was not all that she had said," Charon said sternly, "If you must speak the truth, then you will speak all of it. Vakarian, she is indeed with Cerberus. However, she had also spoken about the Collectors and the Reapers, and how she intends to stop them using the best that the galaxy could offer,"

"That sounds like her. But Cerberus, requesting the help of non-humans? I don't know if they've changed, or if the situation is that bad," mused Garrus, "Or if they're even controlling her at all. I wonder if her omni-tool is still the same one...?"

His curiosity now piqued, Garrus lifted up his omni-tool and punched in the numbers that he knew from two years ago. To his surprise, there was a response from the galactic communications network. The omni-tool's number was _still active_. That couldn't be right; not if the Omni-tool had been disabled or destroyed. Which meant that either Shepard was still alive – or somebody was impersonating her.

Whoever it was on the other side responded. The line went active.

"Garrus? Is that you?"

* * *

A/N:

Wow, it's been forever since I last updated this story. Sorry, guys, about the delay U_U Unlike most of the other writers on this site, I don't write because I have to match a wordcount quota, review quota or otherwise. I only write when I feel particularly inspired by something or another, hence the massive, massive hiatus on this particular story. There are stories that I've come across that are obviously written to just stick to a fixed schedule/quota, and their quality has gone down the drain because the author is more concerned with meeting x words per y days, or z reviews before next post. I'd sooner delete my stories before I let that happen to my writing.

In any event, feel free to write comments, questions etc. to me. I'll try to respond to them if I can.

zealous specter: If you're dreaming about a lesbian Lucy in a fic, why not write your own fic? It's not cool to pressure someone to write something that they don't feel particularly strongly about, or don't match the particular portrayal of the character in that particular fic. Especially if the only thing you care about is the pairing in a story that isn't particularly focused on romance. A character is more than just a set of boobs and ass that you manipulate in any way you see fit, you know - there are smut fics for that need, if that's the itch you need scratched.

Guest: You'd be correct that in this fic, Lucy didn't kill Kouta's parents and cousin. My background take on Kouta is that he was the son of spacers, who drift from spaceport to spaceport with their son in tow. Other characters from Elfen Lied? Mariko is definitely not there, since the Cerberus facility had a neutron purge that killed all diclonii that were not inside their containment cells. Kanae, Mayu etc. may be present in a later chapter.

Anonschmanon: Nana is so innocent, she's totally squee-worthy! I may try to squeeze one in a near-Omake style chapter. As for Lucy's love interest, we'll have to see, won't we?


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